A Michigan Avenue Facelift For NBC, Telemundo Comes Into Public View

For two years, the NBC O&O and Telemundo sibling serving the nation’s third-largest market have been working behind the scenes on designing and building a new newsroom that is designed to “power the next generation of storytelling.”

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, viewers of WMAQ-5 got their first look at the state-of-the-art facility.

The focal point of the new news hub is ensconced on the second floor of NBC Tower, where reporters and production editors are now working in sync across English-language and Spanish-language news stories.

Specifically, WMAQ newscasts are now coming live from “New Studio A.”

In 2024, the space was dark, uninviting and construction hadn’t even started, NBCU Local Chicago President/GM Kevin Cross told viewers Monday (1/19). “Everything was really just on paper and you were hoping that it would turn out very well,” Cross said. “It has actually has exceeded my expectations.”

The NBC Tower, a standout facility on Michigan Avenue steps away from the 100-year-old landmark Tribune Tower, was built in 1989 with forward-thinking tech advancement in mind. Since then, much has changed in the way of news delivery, prompting the creation 35 years later of what’s now been in operation for five days.

“We wanted to make this space as future-proof as possible,” Cross said. “Four or five years down the road, as content changes and as platforms change and as audiences change what their needs are, we will be ready. We have five studios. We have all we need in terms of studio production.” More than 20 camera-ready locations can be found.

Importantly, Cross noted that creating an environment where TV content, digital content, social media content and podcast content anywhere in the facility was integral to the creation of the new newsroom. And, for the first time, newsroom and front‑office teams are now working together on the same floor, further simplifying collaboration and speeding decision‑making.

Additionally, the national NBC News Chicago Bureau is moving into the new workplace, creating enhanced shared newsgathering opportunities alongside the NBC 5 and Telemundo Chicago news teams.

Spanning more than 70,000 square feet of space, the project represents a $70 million-plus investment from the Comcast unit that was authorized in 2021.