Fisher Plaza is on the block

It's always been a big, white elephant; a less-than-exciting performer with a voracious appetite for money that's hard to feed, and never sated.

We speak, of course, of Fisher Plaza, the 7-year-old downtown high-tech development near the Space Needle and EMP.

Fisher Communication has put their flagship headquarters up for sale.

The 6-story, 294,000-square-foot building building at Fourth and Denny with its a four-story graphic of Ichiro on its side is home to KOMOTV, KOMO Radio, KVI, as well as the home offices. A rooftop helicopter pad supports KOMO 4 television's studios; there's an overpriced restaurant called Sport, which is too expensive for the radio help.

CEO Colleen B. Brown put out a who-needs-it-anyhow press release redolent with studied corpo-nonchalance:

"While Fisher Plaza has been a desirable facility to develop and own, it represents a very valuable non-core asset that we do not believe is fully reflected in the value of the Company."

The tortured subtext screams: we're losing the farm!

It's an office, data center, and retail campus of which Fisher Comm occupies but 40%.

It's the other 60% that's the problem.

We don't know all the financial details, but the extra space has always seemed empty, and for whatever reason, the company could never fill it up, and make the elegant "highest tech building west of the Mississippi" pencil.

Some say it was colossal bad timing -- the building opened for business in 2000 just as the bottom fell out of dot-coms.

(Others say things went hinky when the Fishers sold off the flour mills. Pies used to taste sweeter with Fisher's, they say. The switch from enriched, all-purpose to right-wing blather generated bitterness where once was sweet. Could baking ingredients have better karma than media?)

It is said that KOMO can no longer afford to broadcast the Mariners, (we're not sure any radio station can) but we should see some rapid changes in this company next month when the new contract is announced. If they lose baseball, look for rapid, major downsizing.

"You're already seeing it," says Edgar "Choch" Manaña, BlatherWatch business analyst. "Selling the building you built to grow old in, is a big, big deal."

Media seems to suffer economic downturns earlier-on than many other industries, says Manaña, and the Bush Recession is showing it's teeth all around us: only yesterday, we reported KING5 teevee is about to make significant lay-offs. 

Whatever is happening here, it's sad. Fisher is the only locally-owned broadcast company left in Seattle. We'd hate to see the loss of jobs; them moving their corporate suites (and sweets) into a 2nd story walk-up in SoDo; or be forced to rent studio space at Bonneville's Eastlake broadcast center. 

Or having to sell off the grand old Seattle call letters of KVI and KOMO.

Comments

[Sclub]

That building was a Fisher ego trip.

Rents were too high, other potential tenants stayed away.

[DT]

(DT, hold your tongue. You promised you wouldn't criticize this talk radio bog's avoiding talking about local talk radio shows. Think of something positive to say).

BM, you are a good smeller.

[Bob Branson]

I listen to Kirby usually in the morning, but when they put on Dr. Laura I started turning off KVI and forget to turn it back on even though I'd listen to John and Ken.

[AuthenticAndrew]

DT do you ever get tired of being irrelevant?

[misty]

I remember the great days of KVI. We thought as common sense conservatives we finally had a voice in Seattle. It's been chipped away and chipped away. Now its just a shell with John and Kirby trying to pretend like KVI matters. Losing Rush was the beginning, firing Bryan, putting Dr. Laura in there were all big mistakes.

[Dingo]

Salem is just waiting to buy KVI so they can get a decent transmission for KOL.

[Steve Bozell]

Seattle's Scrooge, Dori Monson, is running the finals of a contest today between two women who disagre on whether a parent and two kids can be fed properly on a budget of 300 dollars a month. Monson is peeved that a woman with two kids complained about her princely food stamps stipend of 3 bills a month. I'm trying to figure out what causes Dori to get his panties in a wad over such things, but i must keep it clean because Mama said she would be cheking my posts here when she gets home from second shift at Boeings and if i mention "small penis syndrome" as his reason, she has guaranteed a brisk paddling of my bottom.

[Steve Bozell]

Seattle's Scrooge, Dori Monson, is running the finals of a contest today between two women who disagre on whether a parent and two kids can be fed properly on a budget of 300 dollars a month. Monson is peeved that a woman with two kids complained about her princely food stamps stipend of 3 bills a month. I'm trying to figure out what causes Dori to get his panties in a wad over such things, but i must keep it clean because Mama said she would be cheking my posts here when she gets home from second shift at Boeings and if i mention "small penis syndrome" as his reason, she has guaranteed a brisk paddling of my bottom.

[Chrs]

Well for what it is worth the Datacenter space in Fisher has been in high demand. I think the real problem for Fisher plaza has always been the retail which nobody really seems to want. Also I'm not sure DC tennants are willing to pay the same rates per sqf as class A office tennants. Especially considering the vastly greater building infrastructure demands of datacenter tennants.

[sparky]

I just took a second look at that Rachel Ray ad for DDonuts that was pulled after Michelle Malkin complained. The NYtimes described the picture, noting there was a large building with a distinctive spire in the background.
I looked at it very closely...it is the capital building in Salem. hah,,

[Steve Bozell]

Folks, Mama just got home from second shift down at Boeings and boy is she pissed. She found my reference to Dori's " small penis syndrome" on Blatherwatch. She just tanned my butt with the tabel tennis paddle. Folks, I AM that 45 year old man living in mom's basement that Dori, Shiers Kirby and Luke all accuse us Blaterwatch posters to be.

[joanie hussein]

When you start selling off the assets, you're in trouble.

DT is the Hal of BW. Of course, in the end, Hal did over the ship...

Hmm.

[joanie hussein]

make that "did take over the ship."

[joanie hussein]

"The Bush administration, bowing to a court order, released a fresh summary of federal and independent research pointing to large, and mainly harmful, impacts in the United States from human-caused global warming. The report is online at climatescience.gov, along with a new report updating the administration’s priorities for climate research."

Gee, KS, you going to attack the messenger here as well?

(Sorry for changing the subject Michael)

[KS]

If McClellan would have waited until after the Presidential election to release his book, it would have been significantly better received and it might have sold just as well or better. He would have also been perceived as less of an opportunist - but there was probably some behind the scenes foolery surrounding the book's release that we don't know about yet.

(Back to the originally scheduled subject)

[Longtime Listener]

"I remember the great days of KVI."

Uhh... the great days of KVI sure as hell didn't involve Rush Limbaugh. Bob Hardwick in the morning and Jack Morton in the afternoon... now those were the halcyon days of KVI.

[AuthenticAndrew]

What we think about McClellan's book is irrelevant and frankly retarded. All that matters is what the cousin fuckers in Wyoming thought about about it because they're the ones who pick our presidents. I'm so glad we gave the keys to the country to those isolated xenophopic hill billies because us city folk with our familiarity with Mexicans, Asians and Blacks wholly disqualifies us from deciding in our best interests.

[AuthenticAndrew]

Dave Ross shit talked blogs, saying they only covered other people's journalism and got ahead by using more profanities and clever turns of phrase than the next guy, yet Blatherwatch as leaked tons of good info from inside sources and is unincumbered by ethics or journalistics standards. Blogs are everything old media wants to be.

[Tommy008]

I suspect Dave has had a peek at what some of us non -Dave worshippers here have to say about him, and it isn't pretty, therefore he's lashing out. Clever turns of phrase? This from the most annoyingly cutesy phraser on air? Ross grows more pompous and irrelevant daily, with that annoying creamydeep voice of his and his smug miles per gallon reports from his Prius dashboard. Does anyone else find his overly deep voice to be annoying? He really has become the new Jim French with his curmudgeonly, behind-the-times stereotypes of bloggers. Last week our Major Hoople (Ross) drones on soporifically and extensively again about yet another of his foreign adventures, informing us non-Ivy League, Non-Prius, grateful little folk about what it's like to travel abroad to exotic locales.

[joanie hussein]

He would have also been perceived as less of an opportunist -

This so explains why you are klueless KS. Everybody is an opportunist. And if he actually did put out his book at a time when it will sell fewer copies because of the timing, how is that being an "opportunist?"

Do you deliberately miss opportunities? You probably do.

Something about truth-telling that sure bugs you guys, huh?