CHANNEL 7 MOVES INTO VALLEY KABC TO OPERATE OUT OF GLENDALE.

Byline: Jennifer Hamm Staff Writer

GLENDALE - KABC-TV (Channel 7) will begin broadcasting today out of its sleek new art deco building in Glendale, becoming the second major network to house its Los Angeles news programming in the San Fernando Valley.

The design is retro but the technology is state-of-the-art as 300 employees set up shop over the weekend.

``We built this place for the next 50 years,'' Arnold J. Kleiner, president and general manager, said Friday. ``We don't know what's coming, but we can handle it.''

Tonight's 5 o'clock news report will be the first broadcast from the new studios although viewers aren't likely to notice much of a change, Kleiner said.

Cameramen and sound engineers have spent recent days getting the feel of the new place and trying out the equipment. Some employees moved in earlier this week but most of the reporters and producers won't begin working in the new office until today.

The building, designed especially for KABC, is a welcome change from the old studios in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, Kleiner said. To get to the studio from the old newsroom, reporters had to walk from one building to another - the length of nearly two football fields. Now, everything is under one roof.

The assignment desks are a ``Star Trek''-esque bridge raised slightly above the large newsroom filled with desks for every reporter and producer and 36 jumbo television monitors.

The channel now has two studios rather than just one, picking up an extra 1,000 square feet. The master control room is five times larger than its predecessor.

``We could do the Olympics out of here,'' Kleiner said.

And forget those old stereotypes of crazed broadcasters racing through the studio with videotape in hand trying to make their deadline. In KABC's new building, tapes are being phased out in favor of running video out of a central computer that stores everything from ``Oprah'' to 30-second advertisements.

KABC joins Burbank-based KNBC-TV (Channel 4) in having a news operation in the San Fernando Valley.

KABC executives have wanted to move for years and looked at 62 sites throughout Los Angeles before settling on the one in Glendale.

The 7 1/2-acre lot is less than two minutes from the Ventura and Golden State freeways, making it easy to dispatch reporters. And the Walt Disney Co., which owns ABC, already owned the land.

The 142,000-square-foot facility is in the heart of the San Fernando Road Corridor, an industrial area city officials plan to revitalize. KABC is now next-door neighbors with DreamWorks SKG.

Walt Disney Imagineering, which is just a few blocks away, will soon begin construction of a massive project called the Grand Central Creative Campus. The 125-acre college-style campus will also include the renovation of the Grand Central Air Terminal, the area's first airport.

Adding KABC to the corridor, along with the other companies, will hopefully kick-start the interest of more private investors, said Philip Lanzafame, assistant director of development services for the city of Glendale.

``It adds to the growing recognition of the city of Glendale being an entertainment and technology hub,'' he said.

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Photo:

KABC news directors John Ansen, left, and Ross Kestin sit for a trial run at the Glendale studio.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer