Inside FM89

It may be the holidays, but workers are still busy out at the jobsite this week. Tyvek is being applied to the plywood skin of the building, as workers get ready to prep the walls for stucco. Also window frames are being installed on the exterior, which marks a big visual change for the building. 

The last month has been a busy one at Valley Public Radio's new home. Construction crews have been busy on both the outside and the inside of the building as we are less than four months away from our anticipated move-in date. And in the last few days, window frames have started to fill the openings in the building, giving passers-by an even better idea of what the finished product will look like. 

Valley Public Radio/FM89 is pleased to announce the station has been awarded a $200,000 challenge grant from the James Irvine Foundation for the construction of its new broadcast center. To meet this challenge, Valley Public Radio must raise $200,000 in pledges before the end of 2015. The new broadcast center is under construction at the Clovis Technology Park, located at Temperance and Alluvial Avenues.  The James Irvine Foundation has partnered with Valley Public Radio to help create a local newsreporting presence for the San Joaquin Valley region.

A group of station supporters celebrated in Clovis on Thursday as workers lifted the last major piece of the exterior structure into place on Valley Public Radio's new home. The "topping off" ceremony is the latest milestone in construction of the new facility. Before the last beam was installed by workers with Fresno-based Zumwalt Construction, attendees were invited to sign the steel girder. 

Construction on Valley Public Radio's new home is moving inside, as work on the exterior framing is now nearly complete. Workers are already installing the fire sprinkler system and HVAC ducts, as well as rough electrical work. There's still some interior framing left to do, but the overall interior spaces are now becoming very clear. 

Workers are moving quickly as Valley Public Radio's new home begins to take shape. This week saw the first interior walls go up, as workers build the structure from the studio walls outward. Despite rain on Monday, which sent workers home early, Zumwalt Construction estimates that the building will be completed by the end of March. 

Workers this week began the process of erecting the walls of our new building at the Portal Sierra Research and Technology Park at Alluvial and Temperance Avenues in Clovis. Drivers on nearby Freeway 168 can already see the building going up, as Zumwalt Construction crews assemble pre-fabricated wall panels, steel posts and laminated wood beams. 

If you drive by Valley Public Radio's new home at Temperance and Alluvial in the next few days you'll likely see a lot of activity. Beams and posts and walls are being erected at a swift pace thanks largely through the use of pre-fabricated walls.

It's an exciting day at Valley Public Radio as workers with Fresno-based Zumwalt Construction are busy erecting the first steel and wood beams for the station's new home. After months of site prep, moving and installing new utilities, and concrete work for the building's footings and floors, the bones of the new building are finally starting to emerge. In the next few days, work will move quickly as prefabricated wall panels are installed.

Work crews today poured concrete for the majority of the building's floor areas today. Workers used a giant concrete pump to distribute the wet concrete to different parts of the site and then used hand and power tools to level and smooth the surface. You may notice that some portions of the building don't yet have concrete floors, and that's by design. Those areas are acoustically isolated from the rest of the structure and will have special concrete floor areas to ensure sound doesn't transfer from the outside and between studio spaces.

The first concrete pour is in and more are soon to follow as the construction site begins to hum with activity. The initial pour was for the foundation of the building, along all of the load bearing walls of the structure. Next week workers will return to the site with more concrete to pour the floor slab for the office portion of the building. Days later they will return and make a third pour, for the studio spaces.

Construction is moving forward at a brisk pace at the site of Valley Public Radio's new home at the Research and Technology Park in Clovis at Temperance & Alluvial Avenues. Over the past two weeks crews have been busy installing plumbing and electrical lines beneath the surface and excavating for the footings for our building's foundation. 

Valley Public Radio listeners Eric & Yvonne Pennestri of Porterville sent us their own pictures of construction on Valley Public Radio's new building. Longtime listeners and station members the Pennestris are also capital campaign donors. Here's their view of the project as it begins to take shape out of the earth.

Over the past two weeks workers have hauled tons of fill dirt to the site to raise the grade several inches, in preparation for pouring the foundation's concrete slab. Workers today also began using a trenching machine to dig trenches for plumbing and utilities that will serve the new broadcast center. 

The job site is a busy place these days as work crews are busy doing site excavation and grading for the foundation of our new building. Work crews are in the process of digging up dirt under the site of the new building and then compacting the soil using a machine called a "sheep's foot" roller. This ensures that Valley Public Radio's new home has a strong foundation for the future. 

Valley Public Radio is proud to announce the re-launch of KVPR.org, with a new “responsive design” that delivers a customized user experience tailored to your individual device. The new design also features a cleaner layout, easier navigation, and most importantly more space on the homepage for highlighting the station’s local content, as well as highlights from NPR. All current site content is retained with the new layout.

Valley Public Radio listeners have likely noticed a new voice on the FM89 airwaves, that of David Aus. The station’s newest classical announcer, David can be heard regularly on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM, and Tuesdays from 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM hosting Clearly Classical and other FM89 programs.

David’s voice is familiar to many in the Fresno area. In addition to being an in-demand pianist, composer, arranger and educator, he also is a radio veteran, with nearly 10 years of broadcast experience as a host at KFSR.

On Tuesday May 19th, Valley Public Radio broke ground on construction a new broadcast center, which will serve the station and the San Joaquin Valley for decades to come. The 10,500 square foot building will be erected at the corner of Temperance and Alluvial in Clovis, at the city's research and technology park.