WarnerMedia puts ‘for sale’ sign on CNN Center in Atlanta

WarnerMedia said Monday it will sell the iconic CNN Center in downtown Atlanta, but that doesn’t mean the network will abandon the city.

The network will consolidate its Atlanta workforce in a series of offices across town — the same office campus where CNN was first located upon its founding by Ted Turner in the early 1980s.

“Downtown Atlanta has seen great investment and is quickly becoming an entertainment destination,” Pascal Desroches, chief financial officer at WarnerMedia, said in a memo to staff. “The CNN Center is of great value to a third party that specializes in such developments.”

The CNN Center has been a mix of offices and retail space.

The exit of CNN employees will be a gradual process. The company said it plans to lease the CNN Center offices for five years as its move to the so-called Techwood campus is completed.

The sale had been under consideration for some time but was put on hold pending the company’s merger with AT&T, the company said.

Some of CNN’s television operations, including the network’s prime-time schedule, are produced from the company’s new offices in New York’s Hudson Yards development. But the network’s daytime programs, as well as CNN’s worldwide network, are produced out of Atlanta.

In his memo, Desroches stressed that the move should in no way suggest that WarnerMedia is less committed to Atlanta, noting renovations have already taken place in the Techwood offices.

“We feel the long-term benefit of being in one location will be a more collaborative workforce,” he wrote.