Coming Next Fall: WXPN’s New Home and a Music Venue

WXPN and Real Entertainment Group have signed leases allowing a historic building in the City of Brotherly Love to be developed into a new home for the station’s studios plus an entertainment complex, “World Cafe Live,” that will include music venues and restaurants.
It is expected to open in October.
The Hajoca Building is a former plumbing supply structure on Walnut Street in Philadelphia that is owned by the University of Pennsylvania, licensee of the public station. It is being developed as part of a $15 million renovation project.
The radio station now uses separate, smaller facilities on Spruce Street and another location several blocks away.
Roger LaMay is general manager of WXPN. The station, he said in the statement, will be producing more programming, on better equipment, and will become more accessible.
“Sharing this world-class studio and recording space with a separate but related venue, World Cafe Live, means we’ll have a physical place where XPN members, our on-air talent and staff, and musical artists can come together as one community.”
According to the station, the founder of Real Entertainment Group approached it with the idea of creating a musical venue “where people who are members and fans of WXPN can listen to singer songwriters in an ‘intimate and exciting atmosphere.'”
WXPN Studios and World Café Live are financed and managed separately. World Café Live licenses its name from WXPN’s radio show “World Café.”