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Old Posted Nov 7, 2007, 1:43 PM
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NBC WILL NOT MOVE TO TELEVISION CITY

October 31, 1987

A possible deal to move the NBC-TV studios to Donald J. Trump's proposed Television City project on the Upper West Side fell through yesterday, according to the network and Mr. Trump.

Executives at NBC and in Mr. Trump's organization said NBC had decided against moving to Television City because NBC expected widespread opposition to the huge project and because its costs would rise if Mr. Trump was forced to scale back his plans.

With the Television City agreement scrapped, it was unclear whether NBC, one of the best-known corporate tenants in the city, would find quarters outside New York.

The competition to attract the network has become a symbol to many officials and executives of the struggle by New York City to retain corporate headquarters and the emergence of New Jersey, where the network is considering several sites, as a leading business center.

''NBC will not be part of Television City,'' the president of the network, Robert C. Wright, said. He added that NBC would pursue options in New Jersey and New York City.

The Deputy Mayor for Finance and Economic Development, Alair A. Townsend, said last night that she was confident NBC could be persuaded to remain at its headquarters in the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center.


Officials have been negotiating intensely with the network, which is seeking tax breaks, reduced energy costs and other ways to reduce operating costs.

Ms. Townsend said the city had offered NBC reductions in real-estate taxes and energy costs if it stayed at Rockefeller Center, but she declined to say how large the subsidies might be, adding that City Hall had its limits.

In City More Than 50 Years

''If they want to be at a premier midtown location, there is no way we make their costs comparable to an undeveloped tract outside the city,'' Ms. Townsend said, referring to sites NBC has been looking at in New Jersey.

In an interview, the NBC vice president of facilities and operations, Henry S. Kanegsberg, said the network would ''make the decision between New York and New Jersey over the next month or month and a half.''

The network has had its headquarters for more than 50 years in Rockefeller Center, where it occupies 1.2 million square feet of office and studio space. The lease for NBC, a subsidiary of General Electric, ends in 1997.

''We are willing to accept the space we have here,'' Mr. Kanegsberg said, adding that the network, which has studios and other operations in Brooklyn and Queens, would find ways to augment its headquarters space, if a deal can be struck with city officials. He said the options under serious consideration included five sites in New Jersey.

Trump Plans to Proceed

They are the Hackensack Meadowlands in Secaucus; the Newport development along the Hudson River in Jersey City; the Colgate site, another Jersey City waterfront property, where a new commercial complex is planned to replace a factory; Harborside, a Jersey City waterfront complex under construction, and a waterfront site in Weehawken owned by Hartz Mountain Industries, a major developer in the Meadowlands.

Mr. Trump said yesterday that he planned to proceed with Television City, even without NBC. In a letter to Mr. Wright, he said he would use the space he had planned for the NBC studios to attract other tenants in the television or motion-picture industries.

The developer also said he might dedicate the space allotted to NBC for a restaurant and amusement area that he compared to Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. In an interview, Mr. Trump said that 10 to 20 acres of the waterfront site would be landscaped areas for the public, but that an entrance fee might be charged.

Television City, which Mr. Trump proposed more than two years ago, would cover 76 acres of abandoned railroad yards along the Hudson from 59th to 72d Street. The developer plans the world's tallest building - 150 floors of offices and apartments - and other structures that would include 7,600 apartments, a large shopping mall, a parking garage and a hotel.

Trump to Begin Hearings

The proposal, along with a plan by Mortimer B. Zuckerman for two office towers at Columbus Circle, is prompting widespread concern on the Upper West Side. Mr. Zuckerman's plan, approved by the Board of Estimate, has been the subject of suits and community protests.

An executive of the Trump Organization, who requested anonymity, said NBC had walked away from Television City largely because it feared a storm of community protest in the months ahead. With a preliminary environmental impact statement on the project submitted to the city, Mr. Trump and his lawyers will soon begin hearings on the plans.

A neighborhood group, Westpride, plans to raise $500,000 to hire lawyers and engineers to challenge the plan. The group has recieved support from prominent New Yorkers, including Bill D. Moyers, the television commentator, and the authors Robert Caro, Betty Friedan and Judith Rossner.

Mr. Kanegsberg of NBC said the opposition had been a factor in the decision to pull out. ''We certainly have taken notice,'' he said.

But, he said, the most important factor had been economics. He would not say how much NBC had expected to pay for its offices, which were to have taken 10 percent of the space in Television City. But, he added, the cost would have been higher if the city did not approve Mr. Trump's proposal to develop the 76-acre tract as planned.


''The economics of this transaction,'' Mr. Kanegsberg said, ''were tied to the entire area's being developed.''
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