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Buffalo Saying Goodbye Soon To Big Tree Road Site

Mike Sheridan

Mike Sheridan

This is a tough one fpr me to write. Audacy seems to be selling land these days. This comes from the Facebook site known as "I Take Pictures of Transmitter Sites" I'm quoting Doc Searles who said: This also isn't the last site Audacy will sell off. Also slated for demolition are the current sites of WGR/550 and WWKB/1520 in Hamburg, NY, No mention on where those signals will find a home. For me it sure won't be the same.:cry:
 
This was reported in February 2023 when Audacy set up its Atlas holding company:

radioinsight.com

What Is Audacy’s Atlas? And Are Divestitures Coming?

EXCLUSIVE: Over the past few months, Audacy has been transferring some of its assets into a new holding company, Audacy
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com

Other sites moved into the LLC include the tower land for 550 WGR/1520 WWKB Buffalo, 670 WSCR/780 WBBM Chicago, 830 WCCO Minneapolis (both primary and auxiliary), 850 WEEI Boston, 1080 KFXX Portland, 1080 WTIC Hartford, 92.5 WBEE Rochester, 97.1 KFTK-FM St. Louis, 101.9 WLIF Baltimore, 106.7 KROQ Los Angeles, 107.7 WLKK Buffalo, and 107.9 WLZL Washington DC.
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It would be interesting to see if WKBW and WGR could be relocated to the WBEN site and how the engineering for that would look. I'm still not sure what the demand is for the land in the 'KB/GR location. A real visionary would be needed to repurpose the transmitter building. It's a gem.
 
I know they put this site in a trust presumably to sell it, but I haven't heard it has ever been sold.

There was some discussion that some investigation of moving WGR to the WBEN site had been done a while ago. You wonder if it's even worth moving WWKB sad as it is to say.
 
Moving 1520 and 550 to Grand Island would take a lot of time, effort and engineering creativity. Moving any RF radiator closer to Canada also will require some give and take with the CRTC. Audacy appears to have bigger concerns at this time. Until somebody steps up with cash dollars for the Big Tree Road site, this is a radio messaging board discussion, an interesting on at that.
 
Rusty Bridges said:
Moving 1520 and 550 to Grand Island would take a lot of time, effort and engineering creativity. Moving any RF radiator closer to Canada also will require some give and take with the CRTC. Audacy appears to have bigger concerns at this time. Until somebody steps up with cash dollars for the Big Tree Road site, this is a radio messaging board discussion, an interesting on at that.
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Agreed, considering the cost and effort involved like you said Audacy has bigger concerns. Most won't understand but the thought of that site going away is like watching your childhood home being plowed down. Alas radio is a business and the business is evolving. Lucky WGR is there to anchør the site. If it was just WWKB it would probably have been gone a long time ago.
 
Got word that there is an abundance of land behind the towers which might be up for sale. They could do this without affecting the site much...case closed!
 
The southern portion of the property has a creek running through it. Property south of the creek is designated as wetland on the national maps and is surrounded by developments that make it difficult to access. The northern portion, where the transmitter site, towers, and ground radials are, is accessible from Big Tree Road, but it's likely that any development there would be expensive when you consider the cost of demolition of the towers, removal of the radials, and environmental cleanup of the transmitter site, whether you demolish it or not. Remember, this was a big 50 Kw old-time transmitter site likely to have a lot of environmental issues with PCBs, lead, asbestos, fuel tanks, and other environmental issues. It appears that even the tower companies aren't interested at this point.

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It's bittersweet to see this property potentially go up to sale. In the 1930s, my great grandfather sold what was once part of the family farm to one Clinton Churchill, who erected the WKBW transmitter. We have some old family photos of the transmitter building and towers going up. It was always a point of pride to have such a radio station pulsing from what we would call "Bert's Towers," after my great-grandfather.

Things change. Time marches on.
 
schetm said:
It's bittersweet to see this property potentially go up to sale. In the 1930s, my great grandfather sold what was once part of the family farm to one Clinton Churchill, who erected the WKBW transmitter. We have some old family photos of the transmitter building and towers going up. It was always a point of pride to have such a radio station pulsing from what we would call "Bert's Towers," after my great-grandfather.

Things change. Time marches on.
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If you are open to the idea and have time, uploading scans of those pictures would be of interest to many.
 
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