Historic WWJ building to be redeveloped

[n8fnr]

Nice that the building will be preserved.

Here are some photos of the building here near the bottom of the page; https://www.detroitnews.com/picture-gal ... /75308222/

https://www.michigan.gov/mienvironment/ ... Dr1hh5vbUE

Exploring vacant, locked-up, old buildings that may be contaminated with hazardous chemicals isn't everyone's idea of a job perk. But for some staff, environmental remediation coupled with historic preservation is one of the great benefits of working at the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE). This week in MI Environment, we’re looking at contaminated sites where EGLE helped restore both the environment and a piece of Michigan history.

The old WWJ radio transmission building on Eight Mile Road in Oak Park is the most recent contaminated architectural gem to come our way for environmental help. The building is super cool and it has a great history.

In 1919, William J. Scripps, the son of Detroit News publisher William E. Scripps, became interested in radio. Individuals were prohibited from owning radio receivers during World War I, which had just ended. Most transmissions were by Morse code, which gave radio a limited audience. When Scripps Sr. heard a short audio transmission on Scripps Jr.'s receiver, he immediately recognized radio's potential as a broader communications tool that could complement print. The station was born in August 1920, using Scripps Jr.'s radio call letters, 8MK. In 1922, the call letters were changed to WWJ. WWJ claims to be the first commercial radio station in the world.

Broadcasts began with music from phonograph records, news bulletins, and sports (including baseball play-by-play). WWJ is responsible for many broadcasting firsts: the first live symphony orchestra broadcast, the first live broadcast of a Detroit Tigers game, the first broadcast of a political speech. Baseball legend Babe Ruth's first radio appearance was on WWJ.

As radio's audience grew, the Detroit News invested in equipment and buildings for its new radio station. Scripps hired renowned architect Albert Kahn in the 1930s to design a downtown Detroit office building and a suburban radio transmission building in Oak Park. A student of Diego Rivera’s (Rivera painted the famous auto industry mural inside the Detroit Institute of Arts) painted a mural that spans the top of the transmission building's oval entry. The mural shows the Greek god Zeus in front of a radio microphone. Other art deco details made the entry look like something from a 1930s movie set. A 400-foot radio tower broadcast WWJ across southeast Michigan.

As times and radio technology changed, the Detroit News sold WWJ and the transmission building was abandoned in 1995 after almost 60 years of use. It has been vacant ever since.

A 2014 power outage caused the building to flood and an electrical transformer in the basement to explode. Transformers were made with polychlorinated biphenyls, known as PCBs, until the chemical was banned in 1977. The oily PCBs contaminated the flood water and basement concrete. When the contaminated water was pumped out of the basement into the soil around the building, that became contaminated too.

A few years later, restaurant developer Union Joints LLC approached the city of Oak Park with a plan to redevelop the WWJ building as a new restaurant. Union Joints' other restaurants are in interesting old buildings too: an old Baptist church in Clarkston was repurposed as the Clarkston Union Bar & Kitchen; a Berkley auto garage built in 1919 is now the restaurant Vinsetta Garage; and when Fenton's fire station was moved to a bigger space, the old fire hall became the Fenton Fire Hall restaurant.

Before the WWJ building can be reused, the PCB contamination and some asbestos need to be removed, a cost of $600,000. The City approached the EGLE brownfield redevelopment team for help. EGLE's brownfield coordinator, Dan Gough, who owns a historic Detroit home, was an enthusiastic supporter of the project.

With Dan's help, EGLE awarded Oak Park its first-ever brownfield grant to pay for environmental costs. The grant will pay for removal and disposal of contaminated concrete (taking care to preserve the historic building's structure). PCBs penetrate concrete, so cleaning isn't an option. The grant will also be used to remove and dispose of contaminated soil and asbestos.

Once the environmental work is complete, Union Joints will renovate and restore the building. The new restaurant, expected to open in 2020, will be named 8MK after those first call letters -- a nod to WWJ's place in broadcasting and Michigan history.

WWJ will celebrate its centennial in 2020. This Detroit News photo essay about WWJ's history has great old photos of the transmission building and its original art deco details.

[SolarMax]

This is very old news from at least 3-4 years back. Virtually nothing has gone forward on this project.

[Deleted User 14896]

Some may of seen this before. A 100 year history of WWJ:

https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and- ... al-station

[jimh]

SOLARMAX--thanks for the update on no progress. I have been meaning to drive past the WWJ site on 8-mile to see what had been done. You saved me a trip.

[paul8539]

OK, so when are they going to open the restaurant?

[RayQix]

Hopefully they save this gem of the modern age..... a place where Radio Gods once ruled.




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[atariboy]

As the story goes, the great flood of 2014 rendered this building condemnable and Union Joints (which oddly pulled plans for a Birmingham Bistro shortly thereafter) didn't have deep enough pockets to reclaim the property. They were awarded a brownfield redevelopment grant from the State to clean the property up - but don't hold your breath. Union Joints agreed to pave several vacant lots near Vinsetta Garage for parking half a decade ago and still haven't done it (despite settled litigation with Berkley ordering to do so.)

But the timeline in the original article is completely wrong - Union Joints owned the property well before 2018. Their original excuse for slow development was ‘ the property was more pastoral than we thought,’ but finally they found a way for the State to chip in. I still highly doubt we’re getting a restaurant there. Hell, there’s no demand on 8 Mile in Ferndale anyways.