Joel EngelhardtWPTV Channel 5 moving to Palm Beach Gardens office park next to WPBF Channel 25.
TV news competition just got closer to home for two local stations.
The distance between WPTV Channel 5 and WPBF Channel 25 is shrinking from 12 miles to a few hundred feet as Channel 5 prepares to leave its signature West Palm Beach location for Palm Beach Gardens.
WPTV, which started broadcasting in 1954 from a former greenhouse in Palm Beach, announced the $40 million sale of its 4.7-acre site at Banyan Boulevard and Australian Avenue in West Palm Beach a year ago. The buyer, a partnership led by Related Ross, hasn’t announced its plans for the site.
Channel 5 has more than two years to find a new home. And its choice is a notable one in the competitive business of broadcast news. The E.W. Scripps-owned NBC affiliate will move in just steps away from the headquarters of rival Hearst station WPBF Channel 25, an ABC affiliate.
The new center of broadcast news in the multicounty area served by both stations is the low-profile Northcorp Corporate Park, an office complex built in 1961 for the headquarters of Radio Corporation of America, or RCA, the parent company of NBC.
Scripps has signed a long-term lease with landlord John C. Bills Properties and expects to move in by mid- to late-summer 2027, WPTV General Manager Bill Siegel told Stet News.
As to being neighbors with a rival news station, Siegel said he’s excited.
“It’s not like the old days where a reporter is running to a phone booth” to call in the latest story and beat out their rivals, he said. “We have a lot of respect for WPBF.”
‘Positive growth for the city’
While the site is not as centrally located in Palm Beach County as West Palm, it is closer to the center of the station’s broadcasting area, which stretches from Boca Raton to Sebastian.
As long as sharing the building doesn’t mean sharing journalism, the move positions WPTV to compete head-to-head with WPBF in a fast-growing market, particularly along the Treasure Coast, said Julie Mullen, co-founder of the Delray Beach-based public relations firm, The Buzz Agency.
“We have had valued relationships with so many great journalists at both networks. If anything, I hope this move intensifies their healthy competition to deliver critical, meaningful and timely coverage of the stories shaping our area,” she said.
WPEC Channel 12, the market’s CBS-affiliated third station owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, is also in north county, northeast of 45th Street and Australian Avenue in Mangonia Park.
Having two of the three local news stations in city limits is also exciting news to Palm Beach Gardens Mayor Dana Middleton.
“This is another example of positive growth for the city of Palm Beach Gardens, attracting good companies and real talent,” Middleton said. “We welcome Channel 5 to Palm Beach Gardens, the heart of Palm Beach County North.”
It’s a strong reflection of the momentum and growth in the area, said Noel Martinez, president and CEO of the Palm Beach North Chamber of Commerce.
“As more businesses, families and industries continue to invest in Palm Beach North, the demand for meaningful local storytelling and community coverage continues to grow alongside it,” Martinez said. “We’re grateful to have both WPTV and WPBF side by side telling the stories of the people, businesses and innovation shaping our community every day.”
Demolition underway
The new space is smaller than WPTV’s two-story West Palm Beach office building, which Cincinnati-based Scripps bought in 2001 for $16.9 million. To move to the site at Australian Avenue and Banyan Boulevard, WPTV gave up prime Flagler Drive waterfront space after a lengthy legal fight with the city to allow condos to be built there.
WPTV is adding two studios and control rooms and more makeup and green rooms, which reporters have been seeking, Siegel said. Viewers will see their favorite anchors in a new set.
Scripps has begun a $220,000 interior demolition of the space and is seeking a building permit valued at $4 million to rebuild the interior and another worth $1.4 million to reconfigure the parking lot and install satellite dishes.
Gone will be the parking spaces reserved for Dycom Industries, the last tenant to use that space. Dycom, a telecommunications provider, is now in downtown West Palm Beach.
