KRCC's new digs may be subterranean
CC is considering a green facility to house its station
Public radio station KRCC (91.5 FM) may soon go underground. Literally.
Colorado College, which owns the station, wants to build KRCC a new home in an environmentally friendly, solar-powered, partially-buried structure it's calling an "Earth station."
"Lots of NPR (National Public Radio) stations around the country have made green changes to their buildings," said Delaney Utterback, KRCC's general manager. "I think ours will be noteworthy because we'll try to be completely off the (power) grid."
Bob Kerwin, Colorado College's director of communications, said the school wants the new building to be as energy-efficient as possible, but a final design won't be chosen until June.
KRCC's quarters in a century-old house at 912 N. Weber St. are too hot or too cold, too noisy and too small for a growing radio station, Utterback said.
One of the contenders for the new facility is the "Earthship" design, a building technique pioneered by Michael Reynolds in New Mexico. It uses old car tires, packed with dirt and stacked up like bricks as walls.
Earthships and similar rammed-earth structures are fairly unusual, but they offer several advantages.
Michael Shealy, who lives in a rammed-earth house in Black Forest, said the huge windows and thick walls combine to keep the interior warm in winter and cool in summer.
"The real benefit is the long-term efficiency of the structure," Shealy said. "How much do you spend on your utilities? For me, it's zero."
The disadvantage, Shealy said, is that the houses just look weird. He estimated that there are only 10 to 12 rammedearth homes in El Paso County.
"The main thing that I think the average person would object to would be the curb appeal," Shealy said. "It just doesn't look like anything you're used to, with all these windows facing one direction and the earth all piled up. It's sort of hobbitlike."
If approved, the new facility will be built at the corner of Uintah Street and Mesa Road, a quartermile west of Interstate 25. The property was a bequest to Colorado College by Katherine Belden, who died two years ago. Belden was friends with Woodson Tyree, who founded KRCC, and a proponent of sustainable development.
Although it's in a residential neighborhood, the neighbors aren't opposed to the project. Belden's estate has provided 60 percent of the funding for the project, Kerwin said, and the college plans to raise the rest. He wouldn't disclose the total cost of the project. The city must sign off on the plans and rezone the lot. If the "Earth station" passes muster, Kerwin said KRCC could be burrowed in by the end of 2009.
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