Tucson community radio station KXCI was born downtown in 1983, and this fall it will come home.
The independent station, which plays a broad mix of music from local bands and national touring acts, is creating an auxiliary studio in the small street-front Hotel Congress space that was home for 11 years to The Hive Hair Studio. Construction, which includes sound-proofing the roughly 300-square-foot space, could begin as early as August, and the station hopes to begin broadcasting in the fall.
“I started dreaming up the idea years ago about having a storefront location for the radio station. … I always wanted to move down closer to the community,” said KXCI General Manager Cathy Rivers, who said the station had offers from several downtown businesses before choosing the historic hotel.
The studio is across from the Hotel Congress Copper Room and adjacent to the hotel’s main showroom. The project is funded through the Warden family, which are longtime KXCI supporters.
The empty spaces of The Hive Hair Studio on the ground floor of Hotel Congress will eventually be home to KXCI. The station will return downtown, where it was founded in 1983.
The move will allow the independent radio station to expand its programming and host more live, on-air performances by local and touring bands, Rivers said. It will continue to broadcast from its studios on South Fourth Avenue in Armory Park, where it also will expand its educational outreach. But the downtown studio, which has a window looking out onto East Congress Street, will introduce KXCI to new audiences that have yet to discover the station even after 30-plus years on the air.
“More people can discover us in Tucson, and it’s a great opportunity for us to be out there in the community,” Rivers said.
Folks passing by can look in on weekday drive-time DJ Hannah Levin as she hosts “The Home Stretch” from 3 to 6 p.m. Levin, who joined KXCI a year ago after a 10-year run with Seattle’s award-winning community station KEXP, said on-air guests could include local and touring bands, who might do guest DJ spots or studio performances and interviews. She also wants to have as guests a cast of community events organizers, such as the folks who put on the annual All Souls Procession.
“We try and make the show something that highlights what’s going on in the community in general,” she said.
“The vision is that if Howe Gelb comes off tour and wants to stop by while he’s having lunch, he can pop in and talk about the tour,” Rivers added.
The Hive Hair Studio closed in late June. Owner Sarah Tyler, in a Facebook post, said she was not going to open a new location. Instead she is renting station space and accepting appointments online at thehivetucson.com
Hannah Levin grabs some music from just a fraction of the station’s CD library for her afternoon drive time show The Home Stretch on KXCI, 91.3 FM, Thursday, June 30, 2016, Tucson.
