For participants in the 2022 Detroit Free Press International Half Marathon, which covers 13.1 miles of downtown Detroit and neighboring Windsor, Ontario, it was clear that something special was transpiring in the Motor City. Long-abandoned neighborhoods were being revived, with HGTV shows gaining a national audience. High-end retail specialty shops could be seen steps from Campus Martius. The Detroit Lions started winning games under fiery coach Dan Campbell.
With Detroit’s long-discussed renaissance including the June 6 reopening of Michigan Central Station, Detroit Public Television is joining in the rebirth of a city with a special sense of magic by returning its headquarters to city limits and tweaking its name.
The community-owned, nonprofit media organization that has served Southeast Michigan since 1955 plans to move its headquarters back to the City of Detroit as part of a new community media campus in the Milwaukee Junction neighborhood.
This area of Detroit is just above the prestigious Detroit Institute of Arts museum and spans Woodward Avenue from Piquette Avenue to Grand Blvd., and east to the General Motors assembly center in Hamtramck. It’s also mere steps away from the Fisher Building, home to Cumulus Media’s radio stations.
With the move to 234 Piquette Avenue, between John R and Brush Streets, a renovation and expansion of the existing building will be seen, and the facility will serve much more than a TV station — even as Detroit Public Television rebrands as Detroit PBS. “The campus will provide an ideally situated home for an organizational headquarters, video production and broadcasts, 90.9 WRCJ radio production and broadcasts, arts performances, journalism hub and community events space,” Detroit PBS says.
WRCJ is the fine arts station serving Detroit with Classical music by day and Jazz at night.
“Our return to Detroit represents the culmination of more than a decade of commitment to
Detroit, which we believe is The Most Important City in America,” said Rich Homberg,
Detroit PBS’s President/CEO. “We have been a leader in community engagement in the
PBS system, and that is one of the reasons we have the most diverse viewership in the PBS
system. The focus of our content and engagement starts in the city and then extends
outward to the far reaches of Southeast Michigan, becoming a unifying force in the region.”
Detroit PBS expects to begin construction later this year, with an opening scheduled for Fall
2026.
Ollette Boyd, Detroit PBS’s COO/CFO, commented, “We’re going to bring new life to this
building in a vibrant, growing neighborhood. There are very unique features that a modern media organization needs, and we found them in our new location, after touring dozens of sites in the city.”
To match the name change for its parent, WTVS-56 will be rebranded as Detroit PBS while retaining its legal ID and call letters.
FROM THE RBR+TVBR ARCHIVES:
