In 1978, KGNU, Boulder’s first community radio station, went on air for the first time from a one-room cottage on the banks of Boulder Creek that it rented for $1 a year.
Last week, the community radio station held a grand opening for its new Community Media & Cultural Center downtown on the 48th anniversary of its first broadcast. The new building, behind the Dushanbe Teahouse on 14th Street, features multiple recording studios, meeting and event spaces, a cafe and a rooftop deck.
The station invested about $9 million to purchase and renovate the building. Station leaders said they hoped moving to a more central location, within walking distance of CU Boulder and Boulder High, would encourage greater community engagement.
“You’ll be able to interact with the DJs in a way it was very difficult to do if you didn’t make the trek out to 4700 Walnut,” the station’s former location, said Peter Weber, a principal at Coburn Architecture, which handled the renovations. “This is a place to come and experience radio in a much more visceral way than just hearing it over the airwaves.”
KGNU Station Manager Tim Russo said the new space is meant to reflect KGNU’s long-standing philosophy that community members should actively shape and participate in the station, not simply listen to it.
“Community radio is not about doing something for the community, but about doing something with the community, for itself,” Russo said during his opening day speech, quoting a statement from the World Association of Community Broadcasters.
“I take this to heart,” he said. “It’s about community owning and controlling its own means of communication, and that’s what this space represents. That’s what community radio and KGNU have represented for the last 48 years.”
Each week, KGNU estimates that 30,000 people tune in to one of its programs. The radio station is run by six full-time staff members, two part-time staff members, three interns and more than 400 regular volunteers, both on and off the air.
Numerous civic leaders and local politicians attended the May 22 grand opening, including state Rep. Junie Joseph, state Sen. Judy Amabile, County Commissioner Marta Loachamin, Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett, Mayor Pro-Tem Tara Winer and Boulder City Councilmembers Tina Marquis, Taishya Adams and Nicole Speer, as well as dozens of KGNU board members and volunteers.
Speakers emphasized KGNU’s long history in Boulder and the importance of its commitment to independent journalism and amplifying marginalized voices, particularly in the current political climate, as public media organizations struggle with the elimination of federal funding and other financial pressures. NPR recently announced it is offering buyouts to nearly 300 employees.
Originally an NPR affiliate, KGNU stopped airing NPR programming in the early 1990s, concluding those shows were already widely available on other stations, including KUNC and Colorado Public Radio. The station instead shifted toward programming from Pacifica Network News, “Democracy Now!” and the BBC.
Mayor Brockett read a proclamation from Boulder City Council declaring the annual week of May 22 as KGNU Radio Week, and Erika Bloom, director of constituent services for Rep. Joe Neguse, presented a congressional recognition certificate commemorating the grand opening.
Journalist Amy Goodman, founder of the independent news program “Democracy Now,” which KGNU broadcasts, also attended the event and spoke about the importance of independent journalism.
“I don’t even talk about the corporate media as the mainstream media anymore,” Goodman told the crowd. “You represent the mainstream: those who care about war and peace, who care about the climate … who care about inequality, racial and economic justice, reproductive rights.”
She described KGNU as “such an important model to the whole country.”
Building and funding the new media center
KGNU purchased the new building from a local LLC associated with an environmental law firm that was retiring in April 2023, according to Russo.
The downpayment for the building was $500,000. Rather than paying a traditional monthly mortgage to a bank or credit union, the station opted for seller financing, repaying a multimillion-dollar loan from the LLC over the course of the year.
“This worked for us and the sellers, benefiting both parties,” Russo said. He said the arrangement allowed the station to secure a below-market interest rate while allowing the owners to “sell the building at a lower cost, knowing that projections would provide at least a year of additional interest income to them.”
The station paid off the loan with the help of a $1 million federal tax credit program for community development entities called the New Markets Tax Credit. The station also raised funding from a matching $1.25 million award through the 2017 Community Culture Safety city tax initiative, along with foundation support that matched that grant, about $1.5 million from individual donors and another $1 million through local grants and tax credits.
It is also in the process of selling its former building at 4700 Walnut St., where it had operated since 2001, for about $2 million.
KGNU’s new location is intended to be more visible and accessible than its former East Boulder location, particularly to young people.
The station was originally founded by CU students using donated money, a donated transmitter and studio space provided by the Hilton Harvest House Hotel for $1 a year in exchange for coverage of hotel events.
Students have remained central to KGNU’s programming and operations. For years, the station has offered paid and unpaid internships to young people across the region, including students from CU Boulder, the University of Denver, Boulder High, New Vista and others. Current and former interns were among those in attendance on May 22, and the new space includes a dedicated training area with the next generation in mind.
“We took our first steps 48 years ago, building a lasting community media resource that would reflect and affect the everyday lives of communities across the Front Range. We’ve consistently built on that vision and that dream,” Russo said.
“We hope that this new space becomes that much more of a community space, that much more of a participatory space, that much more of a space where you can define what the future of the station is.”
