Tonight’s debate won’t be held at CNN’s landmark tower in downtown Atlanta that for decades served as the network’s home.

Instead, Brian O’Shea reports, the two presidential frontrunners will go face-to-face in a modest studio and office complex in Midtown that dates back to the network’s founding by Ted Turner in 1980.

The CNN Presidential Debate "game day" stage is shown at the CNN-Techwood campus, Wednesday, June 26, 2024, in Atlanta. CNN is preparing to host the Presidential Debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, Thursday night, June 27th. (Jason Getz/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS)

Credit: TNS

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Credit: TNS

The nascent network operated there until it outgrew it and moved into what became CNN Center in 1987. Staff moved back last year under new owner Warner Bros. Discovery.

Our Rodney Ho reports that CNN is using Studio D for the debate, normally the set of the show “MLB on TBS.” “Viewers familiar with that show will not recognize it,” one executive told Ho.

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Jeff Graham (right) executive director of Georgia Equality, leads supporters carrying boxes of postcards into then-Gov. Nathan Deal’s office on March 2, 2016. Representatives from gay rights groups delivered copies of 75,000 emails to state leaders urging them to defeat so-called religious liberty legislation they believed would legalize discrimination. (Bob Andres/AJC)

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The Midtown Atlanta skyline is shown in the background as an employee works in Cargill's new office, Jan. 16, 2025, in Atlanta.  (Jason Getz/AJC)

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com