Clear Channel Communications Inc., a big San Antonio, Texas-based, diversified-media company that recently acquired six Spokane radio stations as part of a huge transaction, has bought a 16,500-square-foot building at 808 E. Sprague and plans to consolidate all of the stations offices and studios there.


Kosta Panidas, general manager for the Spokane stations, says the move probably wont occur until next fall, after remodeling work and site improvements have been completed at the building. He says the total cost, counting the cost of buying the building, will be probably a couple million dollars.


The radio stations that will be involved in the move are: KISC-FM (98.1), KKZX-FM (98.9), KNFR-FM (96.1), KCDA-FM (103.1), KAQQ-AM (590), and KUDY-AM (1280). Altogether, they employ about 85 people here.


Three of the stations currently are located in a 6,000-square-foot building at 300 E. Third, and the other three are located at 5106 S. Palouse Highway.


Right now we have some real challenges in the procedures between the two facilities, and consolidating the stations will eliminate those problems, Panidas says. Clear Channel plans to sell the Third Avenue property, but will keep its Palouse Highway property so it can maintain tower facilities there, he says.


Weve been actually working on this project for a long time, Panidas says.


Triathlon Broadcasting Co., of San Diego, which formerly owned most of the stations, had planned to expand the building on Third Avenue this year to accommodate the Palouse Highway stations. That project, however, ran into complications, which led to the decision to buy the East Sprague site, Panidas says.


Meanwhile, the radio stations here went through a series of ownership changes. Clear Channel Communications became their latest owner in late August when it acquired Dallas-based AMFM Inc. in a $24 billion transaction. The deal made Clear Channel the nations No. 1 radio operator, with more than 900 radio stations, as well as 19 television stations and 700,000 billboards. It has been acquiring additional radio stations since then and now owns well over 1,000, Panidas says.


The building on Sprague has been mostly vacant for about two and a half years, but before that had housed Bovay Northwest Inc., a former Spokane-based engineering and architectural firm.


Another engineering firm, Tetra Tech/KCM Inc., had been the most recent tenant in the former Bovay building, occupying a small portion of it, but that firm moved in August to a 2,500-square-foot leased space at 1235 N. Post.


Jeff McGougan, of Tomlinson Black Commercial Inc., handled Clear Channel Communications purchase of the former Bovay building.


Dan Cantu, of Kiemle & Hagood Co., and Robert Tyson, of Campbell Co., handled Tetra Techs move.