Super Bowl Update

Just days after finally finding a buyer for one of their bankrupt TV stations (WRBJ-TV in Jackson, Miss.), WAZE-TV undertakers owners Mike and Steve Roberts are at long last getting some help with their flagship real estate properties in downtown St. Louis.

The Post-Dispatch reports that UrbanStreet Group of Chicago and North American Properties of Cincinnati have agreed to spend about $16.5 million to develop new uses for Roberts Tower, Mayfair Hotel, Roberts Lofts on the Plaza and several empty buildings adjoining the lofts property.

The deal, which was put together by CBRE, comes five months after the properties were put up for sale.  It's not clear if the $16.5 million infusion from UrbanStreet and North American indicates a sale of the properties or if the brothers will retain some ownership stake.

At this point, all that is decided for certain is that the long-unfinished Roberts Tower - originally planned with 55 luxury condominiums - will instead be completed as 132 rental apartments, and design work on that project has already begun.

With two bits of good news emanating from the Roberts empire in one week (yeah, I know ... unbelievable, right?), could this mean that WAZE is getting closer to finding a white knight of its own as well?

We'll just have to wait and see.

UPDATE #2, WEDNESDAY 3:15 p.m.:  The latest word on the sale of WRBJ is that the judge in the Roberts Broadcasting bankruptcy case - presumably Judge Barry Schermer, who was handling the case at last check - will have to approve the deal.  That's in addition to the usual FCC scrutiny that station sales receive.

UPDATE, 12:45 p.m.:  According to today's roundup of station sales at TVNewsCheck, TBN is paying $1.5 million for WRBJ. Of course, WRBJ has been fully built-out and is a digital operation, unlike WAZE, which is analog-only and consists - for legal purposes, anyway - of three low-power stations (channels 4, 5 and 17).

PREVIOUSLY: It's been months since we've heard anything from Roberts Broadcasting, the bankrupt St. Louis-based owner of WAZE-LP, Evansville's CW affiliate, but that changed Tuesday morning with a report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the company is selling its Jackson, Miss. station, WRBJ-TV, to California-based Trinity Christian Center, which is better known as Trinity Broadcasting Network or TBN.

WRBJ, the newspaper reports, will drop CW programming in favor of TBN's Christian fare, although it's not immediately apparent when that will happen.  It's also not known how much TBN is paying for the station.

Like its sister stations in St. Louis, Evansville and Columbia, S.C., WRBJ has been a big money loser for Roberts Broadcasting; when it filed bankruptcy around this time last year, the owners listed that the station had $1.23 million in debts and a mere $174,000 in assets.  It's been reported that WRBJ has lost as much as $30,000 a month for the past several months.

Media Venture Partners, a San Francisco-based firm specializing in media transactions, handled WRBJ's sale and is also in charge of trying to sell WAZE and Roberts' Columbia station, WZRB.  No word yet on if any deals are in the offing for those.