Global moving to Gottingen St.

[Haliguy]

Gottingen Street has a glitzy new tenant.

Toronto-based Global News told The Chronicle Herald on Wednesday that it will move its Global Maritimes television news studio from Burnside Park in Dartmouth to the former Palooka’s gym in Halifax.

Global will spend more than $3 million on the building and renovations necessary to change the former fight club into a studio.

“This is a statement that we think of news as content and connection with community,” Troy Reeb, vice-president of Global News, said in an interview.

“We looked at some locations in much higher-rent areas. This isn’t a decision based on money; this is a decision based on where can we really start to make a difference within a revitalized community.”

Last week, Micco Companies, which holds Halifax entrepreneur Mickey MacDonald’s diverse string of companies, including the Shops on Mills and the Chickenburger, closed a deal to sell the building to Global owner Shaw Television GP Inc.

MacDonald had high hopes in 2007, when he transformed the building that once housed the Vogue Theatre into a boxing and martial arts club for at-risk youth.

But he closed the club in September, claiming that the non-profit facility was too costly to operate for the small impact it had. Since then, it has been largely vacant except for the occasional fundraiser.

A renovated building housing a 35-person news operation could help give the on-the-rise street a high-profile new presence.

“Whatever the design, it will be open and inviting to the public at large — a place where people will be able to come in and tell their stories and feel themselves reflected in the product,” said Reeb.

The new Global Maritimes studio will be up and running by September, he said, just in time to launch a new morning news show.

(jdemont@herald.ca)