Only a few months after CP24 and BNN departed from their long-time home at 299 Queen Street West, another of Toronto’s major news outlets has likewise just vacated its legendary location a short distance away.
This weekend marked the last time that City News staff spent at their 33 Dundas Street East office, which the brand had operated out of for around 16 years.
Located in the heart of the downtown core — right at Sankofa (formerly Yonge-Dundas) Square — the building was actually first constructed as an Olympics-themed entertainment venue called Olympic Spirit Toronto, which was open briefly from 2004 to 2006.
Rogers Communications then acquired the 43,000-square-foot space the following year, and eventually reopened it in fall 2009 as the headquarters for CityTV and Omni Television, calling it the “perfect place” that would be “a powerful television site…second to none” for its stations.
“A lot has happened in the 16 years since then. We’ve hosted premiers, prime ministers and mayors. We were live on election nights, covering the major moments in our country, province and city as they happened. We’ve also been able to welcome you, the viewer, into our home as part of Doors Open Toronto,” City said in its final broadcast from 33 Dundas on Saturday.
“Yes, we’re moving, but we’re taking our history with us…. and we will cherish the legacies of the people who helped make City News what it is today.”
Prior to staking their giant presence at Yonge and Dundas streets, City had also shared the iconic aforementioned 299 Queen building — ever-popular with tourists for the CP24 truck art installation that has graced its east-facing exterior wall since the early ’90s — before that landmark (and CHUM along with it) was bought by Bell Media.
CityTV then moved under Rogers’ wing in a $375 million sale in 2007, as Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) guidelines prohibited Bell from owning such a stake in the industry.
They just fired 1300 ppl last June. Why don’t they just come out and announce that we are in a recession. https://t.co/SNc2mCAJ7H
— Abrantie (@Da_Starrr) February 9, 2024
It is hard to see these recent moves in the context of a raft of layoffs and other cuts that have struck companies like Bell, Rogers Sports & Media and Corus Entertainment in recent months, including, most recently, the high-profile firing of Breakfast Television hosts Sid Seixeiro and Meredith Shaw.
While CP24, CTV, BNN and others under the Bell umbrella relocated to 9 Channel Nine Court in Scarborough in the fall, City News, including Breakfast Television, have relocated to the 333 Bloor Street East Rogers Campus. Both brands have positioned the changes as positive ones.
Bell Media had stated in a memo to employees in early 2022 that it intended to “temporarily move our studios to another downtown location” in light of Ontario Line construction near 299 Queen West, and would be moving forward with potential redevelopment of the property at the same time.
Those revitalization plans, which included a request for proposal ” to see what dreams they can bring to life from a development perspective,” were put on ice when the CP24 and BNN move was announced last year.
