DFW station cuts ribbon on new facility

KXAS-TV, the NBC O&O in Dallas/Ft. Worth held a ceremonial ribbon cutting yesterday.

The new facility is part of the metroplex’s CentrePort Business Park, built on the site of the former Greater Southwest International Airport.

Located at 4805 Amon Carter Blvd. (the “48” is a nod to the station’s founding year, 1948, “05” to its PSIP channel number and Amon Carter was the station’s founder), the new building replaces the station’s old Broadcast Hill studios.

Some 300 employees will be moved to the new location, combining the staff of the KXAS-TV and KXTX-TV, the city’s Telemundo affiliate, into a state of the art facility stocked with over 350 television monitors and 1.5 million feet of cable as well as a 114-foot microwave tower.

The building was designed with subtle nods to aviation architecture as a homage to the land’s former use and includes a 108-workstation newsroom, 1,000 square foot media operations center and two 2,600-square foot studios.

KXAS-TV and KXTX-TV will each have their own studio space with new sets scheduled to debut when the station officially begins broadcasting from the building later this month.

Station officials say set installation is still being completed, but did say plans call for LED lighting, touchscreen technology and a multivenue weather center for the NBC station.

The station is still broadcasting newscasts from its existing set on Broadcast Hill, as the newsroom will be the last department to move. That set is a modified version that’s seen several iterations over the years, including an in house effort that scrapped after less than a year in 2008.

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In 2001, the set received another update with new duratrans backgrounds, removal of the monitor situated between the anchors and some other tweaks.

KXAS-TV is celebrating its 65th anniversary this year and marked the occasion, in part, by presenting a weathercast last week using hand drawn maps.

To see photos of the new building, visit the Star-Telegram website.