From Deseret News archives:
2's Main move — Station to play visible, interactive role in downtown Salt Lake
Channel 2's vice president and general manager, Dave Phillips, compared it to a "time-share presentation. . . . I didn't want anything to do with it. I was like a cigar-store Indian with my arms crossed.
"They took me to the 23rd floor and showed me African-wood offices with leaded-glass windows, and I said, 'I can't afford this.' They took me to law offices on the 17th floor. Then, of all things, they took me to the health club. I got about halfway through that and I said, 'Guys, stop it. I'm a TV guy. Show me the ugly space. I've got to know where I can put my satellite dishes, where I can park my satellite trucks.' "
When they showed him the basement with its 22-foot ceilings and the loading dock, "where you can get four or five big semis," Phillips realized he wouldn't have to put part of his operation on the first floor and the rest on the 13th or 17th or 23rd floor — he could use the basement and expand the mezzanine. "And by the time we walked out, I was thinking, 'This could work.' "
Monday — a year to the day later — Ch. 2's newscasts will begin broadcasting from the new downtown facilities, and even the most casual viewers will notice the huge difference. The studios are nothing short of spectacular, and the window-on-the-world aspect — or, at least, window-on-Main Street — will make KUTV distinctive. Which is how Phillips sold his bosses at the CBS station on the idea.
"I said, 'There's nothing I can do to change the image of the station faster than to move out of an industrial park in West Valley and to the heart of downtown Salt Lake,' " he said.
And it's nothing short of a great view out those new windows of the TRAX station and the charming buildings on the west side of Main between 200 and 300 South. The Gallivan Center is on the other side.
KUTV's move won't be finished until early December. And that includes not just staff but much of the technical equipment it takes to operate a TV station.
"If we bought all the equipment and moved to a new facility, it would've been a $40 million project," Phillips said. "The transition move like we're doing is a $6 million project."
The move to downtown wasn't planned — it was a "move of opportunity" presented to KUTV by Wasatch Property Management and Salt Lake City. The city kicked in $4 million (a $2.8 million low-interest loan from the city's Redevelopment Agency to Wasatch Property and a $1.2 million loan from Salt Lake City to KUTV) — but Ch. 2 sees benefits for its new hometown.
