It’s been a long time coming, but we’re so excited to report that 2015 will finally be the year that our nascent digital studios make the transition from construction site to completed building.
Both within our ledgers and within the walls of our new office spaces, we’ve made exciting strides even since our last Static hit the printers and the web.
First, our finances: funds for the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios now stand at $815,532.70. Readers may note that this is a substantial increase from our to-date fundraising sum from even just a few weeks ago. This is thanks to a handful of major donations, the largest of which is a $111,000 grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, a nonprofit based in Washington state that helps support efforts to “strengthen the… educational, cultural, and spiritual base” of the Pacific Northwest (including Alaska).
The Murdock award was confirmed and made public just after our last Static deadlines for 2014, and we’re so grateful to begin the New Year with this surge of generosity and momentum. The Murdock grant caps off the generosity of so many thousands of individuals and endowment organizations and completes the necessary funds for our new construction.
To put it simply: the construction and outfitting of our new studios is now paid-for. The remainder of our fundraising goal — the $185,000 we have left to raise to push us to the $1 million mark — will go towards the renovations needed for our existing, current studios and facilities, including our AM transmitter site.
And our new studios are not only paid-for, but they’re also closer to being inhabitable. While they are still missing broadcast equipment, the spaces are now outfitted with proper soundproofing and energy-efficient, LED lights (such as those general manager Ric Schmidt is inspecting in the photo at top), and they’re being laid with carpeting as we go to press.
Thank you for standing with us for so many months as our studio project has inched closer to reality! We still have much work to do, but we couldn’t be happier with the state of our project as the calendar turns over into 2015. As always, to learn more, visit our digital studios page.