Skender Completes Construction on Chicago Public Media Studio Renovations in Navy Pier

Skender has completed a gut renovation on Chicago Public Media’s studio space, located at 848 E. Grand Ave on Chicago’s historic Navy Pier. This rehabilitation project comes on the heels of Skender’s 2019 build-out of the office space and café surrounding the media company’s studios.

The gut rehab of the 7,600-square-foot studio space, which serves both WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times, began in July 2023 and featured the addition of custom soundproof windows between studios, soundproof editing booths, acoustic wall panels, mobile sound diffusers and finished-off millwork and graphics across most elevations. The original broadcast studios dated back to 1995, and the updates transformed the space into modern content creation studios that seamlessly incorporate video and audio components for both live and recorded content.

In total, Skender built out four two-person edit booths, two anchor studios, a talk studio, a back-up on-air and production studio, a dedicated production studio, an audio/visual studio and an on-air music studio to meet the increasingly tech-focused needs of the WBEZ, Chicago Sun-Times and Illinois Public Radio reporters and producers who utilize the space. One major change across many of these spaces was the addition of several large windows to connect the studio space to the newsroom and offices.

Skender was able to navigate this challenging build-out inside of a fully operational office and newsroom with minimal disruption to workflow. When the building’s small elevator could not accommodate the transportation of materials and trash, Skender constructed a scaffold to hoist necessary materials in and out of the building.

“Chicago Public Media is an institution locally in Chicago and the state of Illinois, and nationally,” said Mike Hightower, Project Manager at Skender. “Given our work on the organization’s offices in 2019, the Skender team was intimately familiar with the space and its people and understood the unique complexities of completing a construction project on Navy Pier. Our expertise helped make the process simple and easy to navigate for the client.”

The project team consisted of V Three Studios (architect), Skender (general contractor) and Syska Hennessy Group (engineers).

Read more about the new studios in Radio World.