The winning bidder for the WMAL(AM) tower site is a partnership of Toll Brothers and Winchester Homes.
Bethesda Magazine credits real estate publication Maryland Newsletters for sussing out who among the many bidding luxury home developers Cumulus chose for its 75-acre tract of land. The site was developed as a radio transmission site in the early 1940s.
Real estate firm CBRE had advertised the property as an “extremely rare in-fill development opportunity” because the tract sits near the Capital Beltway and 1-270.
Winchester Homes is based in Bethesda, Md., and Toll Brothers is headquartered in Horsham, Pa. Both have several home developments underway in the Washington metropolitan area, according to the account.
WMAL’s towers, satellite dishes and a transmitter building are on the site to be sold. When the four-tower array is dismantled and everything else is removed, Cumulus will lease transmission facilities elsewhere.
WMAL’s programming is also simulcast on 105.9 MHz, Woodbridge, Va.; that location is unaffected by the Bethesda site sale.
