Our projects are often “in the news,” but this time our project literally is “the news!” WETA recently completed a $58 million expansion and renovation project that included a new 4-story addition to their Arlington, Virginia headquarters. SK&A was pleased to collaborate with Cresa Partners, Studios Architecture, and DPR Construction on this project.
The WETA headquarters is home to the PBS News Hour as well as Washington Week. “When PBS News Hour went on air from its new broadcast facility on June 10, 2024, it marked the culmination of a complex, years-long project… The public television news program… now originates from a state-of-the-art facility that rivals any in the industry,” writes Dak Dillon of Newscast Studio. He continues, “It’s a wholesale embrace of next-generation broadcast standards and a significant investment in public media’s future” (Dillon, 2024).
The expansion and modernization will allow WETA to consolidate, moving fully out of their other Arlington production facility on 27th Street S, which was purchased by the county and is now slated for demolition. With the addition of two main studios and one smaller studio, WETA now has the capacity to be a 365-day, 7-day-a-week production (Blitz, 2023).
Learn more about SK&A’s work on this project: https://skaengineers.com/projects/weta-headquarters/
Sources:
- Dillon, Dak. (28 Jun 2024). “Inside WETA’s SMPTE 2110 Facility Upgrade for PBS News Hour.” https://www.newscaststudio.com/2024/06/28/smpte-2110-pbs-news-hour-broadcast-facility/
- Mwachiro, Mark. (11 Jun 2024). “Sara Just Discusses PBS News Hour’s New Look: ‘It Was Time for a Refresh.’” https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/sara-just-pbs-news-hour-new-look/
- Blitz, Matt. (12 Jan 2023). “WETA’s $50 million expansion in Shirlington is almost finished.” ARLnow. https://www.arlnow.com/2023/01/12/wetas-50-million-expansion-in-shirlington-is-almost-finished/
