This month, Nine PBS is saying goodbye to its barracks of an office in Grand Center and moving to a new home in Forest Park Southeast.
But the move is temporary—a key step in a $30 million gut rehab that will see the public television station returning to Grand Center in about a year.
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“The goal is to return in early fall 2027 to a significantly revamped space that is very focused on bringing the community together and having the right kind of space that our staff can do their best work possible, where they are in close proximity and where they can meaningfully collide with each other,” says Nine PBS CEO Amy Shaw.
The old space was designed for PBS, but it was designed for a much different era. In 1998, when the station moved to Grand Center from a studio on the campus of WashU, you needed room for videotape. The cloud was still something that brought rain, not stored files. “I remember when I came to Nine PBS in 2003, the big hot thing was we had a brand new HD editing suite,” Shaw recalls. “It was the size of a small New York apartment. You really needed a lot of space.”
Now, instead, the station needs room for people. Shaw estimates the staff has grown about 40 percent larger from when they moved into the building, with 80 employees now working together (and on site at least one day each week for “Together Tuesdays”). Architectural firm Trivers designed the new and improved building to include a lot of flexible space. That’s both to allow staff to collaborate with each other but also to allow Nine PBS to better interact with the community. Renderings show an open-air, second story space overlooking the Media Commons that Nine PBS shares with St. Louis Public Radio, as well as an airy lobby that will invite people in—quite a contrast from the cramped waiting room that greets visitors today.
Says Shaw, “When we moved into this building in 1998, media was in a very different place. It was designed as a TV station. That was the priority. Community was not as much a thought as it is now.”
The station is well on its way to raising the money it needs for the move (in addition to the $30 million Shaw says the renovations will cost, it’s raising another $12 million or so in its capital campaign). As of press time, they’ve raised $27 million and are feeling confident about what is to come. “We are well on our way and have every likelihood of success,” says Shaw.
Perhaps the bigger challenge may be that year while construction is underway. It’s not easy to pack up operations when you’re a TV station that broadcasts daily, and adding to the complication is that the temporary studio space they found is different from the temporary office space (Donnybrook will now be taping in Brentwood).
Beyond that, the office space in Forest Park Southeast is just 15,000 square feet, a whole lot smaller than the 45,000 square feet they’re used today. Still, it’s a good excuse to downsize. “People have used it as a great opportunity to unearth 28 years of stuff,” Shaw says, laughing. “Having a bit of a more minimalistic approach is exciting, to get rid of some of that dead weight.”
But Shaw is feeling confident it will just be one year away. At the helm of the project is Anna Leavey, whom the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra credits with bringing in its massive renovation of Powell Hall on time and under budget.
At one point, Shaw acknowledges, the station contemplated doing the work in phases and trying to stay on site during construction. They quickly rejected that plan, she says, in part because it would be more expensive. “Also, because there is really a sense of urgency to get everybody back in the building and doing the work that we do,” she adds. “We really believe that this building will facilitate even stronger work that will support this community. And our main goal is, How do we help this region flourish? So the faster that we can get ourselves back into the building that facilitates that work—that’s what we’re really doing.”
See more renderings below. Nine PBS also invites members of the public to join Be My Neighbor Day: Let’s Build, a community-focused event featuring Daniel Tiger, fire trucks, and a whole lot more on August 29, the last hurrah at the old building for a full year.
Editor’s note: The author is a freelance contractor for Nine PBS through her bimonthly appearances on Donnybrook.
