After spending years crammed inside a small house, the employees at the local radio station are ready for a new place.
By SHERRI DAY
Published August 6, 2004
SEMINOLE HEIGHTS - To appreciate what's going on at the construction site for the new WMNF-FM building, one need only look next door.
The station's current home, a 1930s house turned radio station, is a study in disarray. Closets hold desks and employees. One restroom serves 14 staffers and hundreds of volunteers. Materials crowd the reception area, leaving no place for a visitor to sit.
The entire building, with files, music and papers peeking from every nook and cranny, begs for a spot on the Learning Channel's Clean Sweep, a program that helps pack rats declutter rooms.
But the chaos nears an end.
After five years of planning, fundraising and construction, WMNF finally has a projected move-in date: mid October, provided the weather cooperates (it has been raining) and contractors stay on pace.
"Every time I put somebody's walls up, I say "Here, go sit in your office,' " said Mark J. Donald, the construction manager.
That's a heady invitation for a crew accustomed to a crowd. Currently, only the station's business manager has her own office. As many as five people cram into a bedroom-sized work space, jammed together so tightly that even feet can barely breathe.
For now, WMNF staffers lusting after their new digs still have a lot of imagining to do. The station, at 1210 E Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., remains a work in progress.
When they tour the 12,000-square-foot building, hard hats and closed-toe shoes are de rigueur.
But each day, the building evolves.
Last Friday, gray-tinted windows began to go in. Tuesday morning, the roof took shape, with duct work and plumbing and electrical jobs next up. Soon a new satellite dish will adorn the courtyard.
Once completed, the two-story building will have six studios - the current station has one - a 574-square-foot performance space with an 8-foot viewing window, extra storage and offices for staffers and volunteers. This time, the break room will even have a table.
"Everything is probably about 21/2 times more than what they have now," said Donald, a professional engineer and also a WMNF listener.
With the station's structure coming together, late last week Donald turned his attention to a more pressing matter: What color scheme for the building's facade?
"I'm at the pick-one stage," he said, peering at color samples set before him by Annette Gloomis, a design consultant to lawyers, doctors and professional athletes.
Before their session, Donald colored renderings of the exterior gray. His accent colors were pink, sea-foam green and red.
Gloomis coaxed him back from the brink of a design disaster.
Donald gave up the gray but insisted that the building's color scheme remain classic Florida. He had orders from the station's staff.
"You know there was good Florida and there was bad Florida," Gloomis said, eying the pastel-colored rendering.
She suggested neutrals, an oyster shell base - that's a shade of beige - with caramel and turquoise bands across the top of the building. Decorative red steel panels would highlight the front. And for extra pizzazz, the station's call letters would appear in turquoise or red.
But Gloomis still has to get the staff's okay.
Her presence is typical of the station's approach to constructing its new home. Community-funded, it is a project for the community, station officials said.
According to station manager Vicki Santa, WMNF raised more than $2.2-million, mostly through small individual pledges, to build and outfit the new facility. Through relentless and creative fundraising (Remember Adopt-A-Watt or Dining on Air?), the WMNF staff encouraged listeners to donate money, time and talents.
In a final one-week push last month, volunteers raised nearly $500,000. The money and the in-kind gifts keep coming. In a few weeks, board members will report to the construction site to help install custom-made woodwork.
The station, which broadcasts as far as New Port Richey and Sarasota, and its listeners banded together because clutter threatened to swallow production in the old house.
Much of it is essential. A radio station, for example, can't discard 41,000 CDs and 6,000 albums or get rid of business records. (The new building will have space for 72,000 CDs and a storage room for old files.) But the house has little more than sentimental value. Once the staff moves into the new building, the old station will become a much-needed parking lot, Donald said.
"While there's something to be said for closeness and togetherness, I don't think any of us are doing our best work," Santa said. "A lot of people are going to blossom when we get into that new building."
Proud of the building's funding, Santa also touts its environmentally friendly attributes, which include cork or bamboo flooring instead of oak in the production studios, hallways with rubber floors made from recycled tires and slanted windows that relect sunlight. Staffers salvaged furniture from Tampa's old federal courthouse. The rest will come from a used furniture dealer, Santa said.
Mark Klutho, a local gadfly and self-proclaimed environmental guru, has been contesting WMNF's building plans for at least a year. He would like to see more insulation so the building is less reliant on artificial heating and cooling systems.
But Donald says it has more than twice the insulation that building codes require.
Santa also stands by the station's plans.
"I would love for us to be environmentally perfect, but that's not going to happen," Santa said. "It would be wonderful if our primary purpose was to build a showcase green building, but our primary purpose is to build a radio station, and to be responsible with it. I think we've done that."
To celebrate how far the station has come, the staff will host a live-remote broadcast in the new building - whether or not it's ready for occupancy - on Sept. 14, WMNF's 25th anniversary. Plans for a Sept. 10 birthday concert, featuring Dave Alvin and the Guilty Men and Deborah Coleman, are also in the works.
All the fuss is enough to make Mercedes Skelton, the station's business manager, giddy.
"We've just talked about it for so long," said Skelton, who joined the station's staff in 1984. "We're actually doing it. I'm just so proud."
If you go
WHAT: WMNF's 25th Birthday Party
WHEN: Sept. 10 at 8 p.m.
FEATURING: Dave Alvin and the Guilty Men and also Deborah Coleman
WHERE: A La Carte Pavilion, 4050 Dana Shores Drive, Tampa
