Photo of Discovery’s headquarters with the famous Chompy by Flickr user and ©GlynLowe.com, published under a Creative Commons license.
Discovery Communications has sold its headquarters building in downtown Silver Spring, according to reports.
The buyers are a joint venture of Foulger-Pratt, based in Potomac, and Cerberus Capital Management, a New York private investment firm, reports WTOP.
The radio station cites the Washington Business Journal, which broke the news in a subscriber-only story, as saying the price was $70 million.
WTOP also quotes Cameron Pratt, chief executive of Foulger-Pratt, saying, “When the opportunity to purchase such an iconic, centrally-located building in downtown Silver Spring became available earlier this year, we knew this was an investment we could not pass up.
“We’re looking forward to re-envisioning the property and welcoming future tenants to Silver Spring,” the report continued.
Foulger-Pratt was the developer of the Downtown Silver Spring redevelopment near its new building, and also owns Silver Spring Metro Center.
The company intends to renovate the building, the WTOP report said, with “updates to the exterior facade, new streetscaping and new amenities.”
In June, Discovery announced its new headquarters would be located in leased space at 230 Park Ave. South in Manhattan.
The company agreed to move to the Silver Spring location in October, 1998 and the building opened in the spring of 2003.
John Hendricks founded the company in 1985 as Discovery Channel. The company continues to operate Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Investigation Discovery, Science, TLC, and other brands.
Hendricks later founded CuriosityStream, a service offering streaming documentaries that’s also based in Silver Spring, and serves as its executive chairman.