Nine PBS Gears Up to Move Out as $30M Renovation Gets Underway
Date Posted: August 4, 2026
Posted In: Featured, Projects,
From St. Louis Magazine: This month, Nine PBS is saying goodbye to its barracks of an office in Grand Center and moving to a new home in Forest Park Southeast.
But the move is temporary—a key step in a $30 million gut rehab that will see the public television station returning to Grand Center in about a year.
“Significantly Revamped Space”
“The goal is to return in early fall 2027 to a significantly revamped space that is very focused on bringing the community together and having the right kind of space that our staff can do their best work possible, where they are in close proximity and where they can meaningfully collide with each other,” says Nine PBS CEO Amy Shaw.
The old space was designed for PBS, but it was designed for a much different era. In 1998, when the station moved to Grand Center from a studio on the campus of WashU, you needed room for videotape. The cloud was still something that brought rain, not stored files. “I remember when I came to Nine PBS in 2003, the big hot thing was we had a brand new HD editing suite,” Shaw recalls. “It was the size of a small New York apartment. You really needed a lot of space.”
Room for People
Now, instead, the station needs room for people. Shaw estimates the staff has grown about 40 percent larger from when they moved into the building, with 80 employees now working together (and on site at least one day each week for “Together Tuesdays”). Architectural firm Trivers designed the new and improved building to include a lot of flexible space. That’s both to allow staff to collaborate with each other but also to allow Nine PBS to better interact with the community. Renderings show an open-air, second story space overlooking the Media Commons that Nine PBS shares with St. Louis Public Radio, as well as an airy lobby that will invite people in—quite a contrast from the cramped waiting room that greets visitors today.