Florence Morning News - August 08, 2007
By Charles Tomlinson
The Florence Design Review Board has given its unanimous preliminary approval for a Morning News expansion that includes an 80-foot tower and satellite dishes for WBTW News13.
Media General, which owns WBTW News13 and the Morning News, is the applicant for the project.
The tower was dropped from its original 150-foot height.
The board in July deferred informal preliminary approval of the 4,000-square-foot Morning News office expansion, which would accommodate nearly 20 WBTW News13 employees from the station’s TV Road location. Media General also hopes to add five to 10 satellite dishes behind the Morning News offices.
Board members have suggested moving the tower so that it would be less visible to pedestrians near the upcoming Francis Marion University Center for the Performing Arts as well as the relocated Florence Little Theatre.
Media General representatives and city officials recently flew a helium balloon behind the newspaper’s offices and took pictures to determine how visible the tower would be from surrounding streets.
“If we keep reviewing this, will it get down to 40 feet?” board member Gary Brown joked during today's board meting.
He later said of Media General’s preliminary plan, “I think this has solved pretty much all of my reservations.”
To receive transmissions to an 80-foot tower, Media General must raise the dish on its Dillon tower 250 feet — to a 650-foot elevation — so it can “clear the ground clutter,” said Ken Breeden, facilities development director for Media General.
“The risk when we lower the (downtown) tower is (of) a future development getting in our way,” Breeden said.
A denied proposal for a 110-foot Alltel tower in downtown Florence would have placed a tower inside a flagpole with a large, custom-made flag at the top. Alltel revised the proposal to include the flagpole design after the first denial of its request.
The Alltel tower would have stood behind Bazen’s Family Restaurant on South Irby Street.
The flagpole design would not work for Media General, Breeden said last month, because movement of the pole could interfere with the point-to-point microwave signal to the tower.
The board voted last month to deny the Alltel tower because it was taller than other downtown structures and therefore incompatible with development in the area.
The next step is for Media General to make a formal request to the Design Review Board, which could hold a public hearing on the issue as early as Sept. 12.
A target date for the expansion will be based on approval of the request, WBTW General Manager Michael Caplan said Wednesday.
In other business, the board approved a certificate of appropriateness for demolition of a former dentist’s office at 350 N. Dargan St.
City officials also met with developers Friday to discuss plans for a Walgreens store at Palmetto and South Irby streets, urban planning and development manager Phillip Lookadoo said.
The city, to make the store more compatible with downtown development, is asking for a six-foot, monument-style sign in front of the store, as well as fabric awnings and windows closer to the ground than those at most Walgreens stores, Lookadoo said.