March 28, 2024

KSIB plans change for new year

In just over a month, Chad Rieck and his fellow KSIB Radio employees will be seeing changes — literally, in the form of a new broadcasting building.

Construction on the building, which has red siding and is located just to the southeast of the current KSIB radio broadcasting center, began in September, and Rieck, KSIB general manager, said he expects it to be finished and the radio hosts to begin broadcasting inside by Jan. 1.

“Hopefully, the plan will be for the first of the year. It could be finished before that, and it’ll take a bit to move over there, but our plan is to be broadcasting from there the first of the year,” Rieck said.

The current building, located west of Creston at 1409 Highway 34, is 69 years old, and has structural issues, such as in the foundation and roof. A main reason for new construction is the amount of flooding in the basement every time it rains. According to Rieck, they could either start over with the construction of a new building, or spend more money to repair the current one.

Sharp Construction of Creston is doing the construction on the building. Once it is finished, the old building will be torn down and cleaned up.

The new space, which currently has outside walls, most of its windows, an open space for a garage door and framework for the inside walls, will be around 2,000 square-feet, which is smaller than the current space.

“In the current one, we have a lot of wasted space in that building,” Rieck said. “Plus, there’s a basement in the current building, which there will not be in the new one.”

There will be five broadcasting studios, five office spaces, a kitchen area, conference room, bathrooms and an attached garage within the new building.

Also included in the new building is a new control board, which is what they use to run everything, and a new satellite dish to make broadcast sound clearer.

“I’m extremely pleased with how far it’s coming along. It’s going faster than I thought it would. I really like how it’s shaping up,” Rieck said. “I think, once we get all said and done, it’ll make the entrance to Creston look a lot nicer.”

An open house will be planned after Jan. 1, but no set date is scheduled yet.

“It’ll be a huge sense of accomplishment when it’s finished. This is something that needed to be done for some time now, and the timing was just never right,” Rieck said. “But, to finally be able to move into a new facility, providing our employees a clean space to work in everyday will be a huge benefit for all of us.”