KRFC continues on the road to new and improved

With plans to move into a fresh, functional space and hit the airwaves harder than ever, 2016 might just be the year of KRFC-FM.

The community radio station (88.9) has been broadcasting from Fort Collins since 2003 and was just announced as the first official tenant of Bohemian Foundation's Music District.

Since its debut, KRFC was broadcast out of 619 S. College Ave., a run-down strip-mall-type structure formerly known as the Garment District building. After the Bohemian Foundation snapped up the property and started construction to transform it into a music-centric gathering place, KRFC moved out to broadcast from a temporary space.

Now, as the first official tenant of the new Music District, KRFC Executive Director Brian Hughes said the station hopes to have their space finished in September with a move-in window between October and December, at the latest.

In working with Bohemian Foundation, Hughes said the space originally just looked like any old office space.

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"We said, if you really want a world-class radio station to be a cornerstone of this Music District, then there's a little bit of a different thought process that needs to go into it, and they really listened," Hughes said.

The space will give the station more square-footage than it previously had and will allow for a community space, its own lobby area, a row of office areas for staff and volunteers, a row of studios and quality soundproofing.

"It's configured far more efficiently (than the former space)," Hughes said. "The space before was literally cobbled together."

"As listeners of KRFC know, sometimes we had difficulties switching between our morning mix and going to Live at Lunch because they (the studios) were at opposite sides of the space," he added.

Besides having a more thoughtful design, Hughes said KRFC's new capital campaign, which was announced last weekend at its annual birthday bash, will hopefully help raise the funds necessary to replace its current decade-old equipment.

"With the new equipment that we're trying to buy, the goal was to think of the future," he said. "Our previous equipment served us for 10 years. Well, what do our next 10 years look like?"

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For KRFC listeners, these changes in location and equipment should mean a higher-quality product with less technical hiccups and more music variety as the station works to digitize its back catalog and expand its digital library capacity. Hughes said listeners can also expect to see more seamless integration with the station's website, online streaming and remote broadcasts.

The capital campaign's second phase — the first is the move and purchase of new equipment, which comes in at a total investment of $303,142 — will also start late this year as the station starts upgrading its tower, improving its signal for early 2017 at a cost of $102,060. The third, which will include the addition of paid news and program coordinators, app development, upgraded stream-hosting and Internet service and the establishment of an endowment or reserve funds, will come it at around $95,000.

"We're already at just over $100,000," Hughes said of the capital campaign's initial donations. "So we're off to a great start."