VoV studio coming to former quilt shop
Published 1:29 pm Tuesday, October 27, 2015
By ANNELI FOGT
Editor
Giant numbers posted in the window of the former Island Quilter shop in town began counting down from seven last week, marking the days until today, when a surprise would be revealed.
The surprise? Voice of Vashon will be opening a new storefront broadcast studio in early 2016 in the front of what will soon be a fitness studio owned by islanders Kelly Macomber Straight and Zabette Macomber. Construction has already started inside the building, and the storefront between Zombiez and the new ice cream shop has been abuzz with construction activity. However, the project has remained under wraps, and islanders have been unable to see the process. That will all change today, as town passersby will now be able to watch the progress through the large windows facing Vashon Highway.
KVSH FM Program Director Jeff Hoyt told The Beachcomber that the couple reached out to the station with the proposition months ago because they liked, the “idea of a community-centric organization occupying the front of their building.”
“We’re happy to be able to help VoV have more of a presence on the island, and we know that they will be a fun and unique addition to downtown,” Macomber Straight said in a VoV statement.
Hoyt said that the station realized it was being offered a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that would not likely come around again.” With the decision made to pursue the project, VoV board members began to quietly reach out to major donors, and Hoyt said the board was surprised by the response.
The response from donors was “terrific,” according to VoV Board President Jean Bosch. She said the organization didn’t want word getting out until it was certain funding to start construction was secured.
“We reached our minimum funding goal rather quickly,” Bosch said. “A town location has long been on our wish list, so when this opportunity arose, we had to go for it.”
VoV Station Manager Susan McCabe said that she is shocked that the project was able to be kept secret for so long and is happy that the pieces came together to make the studio happen.
“We were just fundraising for months and trying to keep it all under wraps, and it worked,” McCabe said. “I can’t wait to see how the community will react.”
The studio is slated to open at the beginning of next year, but the major construction project to create an acoustically-isolated studio has been no small feat. Hoyt said VoV hired a Seattle acoustic engineer to design a plan that would not only isolate the studio from the sound of the exercise classes happening on the other side of the studio’s back wall, but shut out the most of the noise from Vashon Highway as well.
“A tiny bit of noise bleeding through from the street could add a fun layer of ‘local’ to our broadcasts,” Hoyt said. “But we want the studio to sound as tight and professional as possible.”
Within a few months, the sight of construction crews and equipment on the other side of the 28-foot-long wall of windows will be replaced by live disc jockeys and radio and TV show production.
“This is an opportunity for VoV to fulfill its mission of connecting to the community,” VoV Storefront Studio Project Manager Rick Wallace said. “This new additional space puts us right in the heart of Vashon town, where we will be more accessible and more visibly fulfilling our mission to be a virtual town square for the island.”
The station plans to use the new studio as a space to broadcast all of its live shows, such as the weekday KVSH Morning Scramble show and Chris Austin’s “Austin in the Afternoon” on Wednesday nights. The new studio will also be large enough to accommodate live performing artists, entire bands, roundtable discussions or even a small television shoot.
“We’ll recruit and train volunteer DJs and producers so we can add more live shows at other hours across the day,” Hoyt said. “Folks walking and driving by will be able to see the DJs at work through the windows on the sidewalk. We expect the studio to help bring in new volunteers, and the heightened visibility should make it easier for us to keep adding membership to help sustain our many services to the community.”
The old studio at Sunrise Ridge will be used for pre-recording shows.
The radio studio project is the most recent in a series of large changes to the building this year. Island Quilter was a Vashon staple for many years and drew international acclaim, but the building was sold this spring to Straight and Macomber, a move that created controversy in the community among those who used the shop and the classes it offered. A Feb. 18 Beachcomber article reports that many islanders and quilt shop regulars were devastated upon hearing news of the sale and former owner Anja Moritz’s plan to relocate off-island.
The couple bought the property after consulting with a John L. Scott real estate broker, who told them about local properties up for sale, of which the quilt shop building was one.
Moritz temporarily reopened the quilt store in June in the former Vashon Family Practice building at the south end of town. It is now closed again due to landlord-tenant conflict.
