Old KRKO Studios for Sale

The former studios and transmitter site of KRKO radio on Lowell-Larimer Road is up for sale. I've driven by there numerous times recently not realizing how nice it looked inside. Check out the pics in the listing below.

https://www.windermere.com/listing/WA/Everett/7115-Larimer-Rd-98208/79957394

I worked in that building in 1965-66, for Bill Taft. Seriously different inside now. Wow! The radio home of so many in the 60s, including Russ Rebel, Big Jim Martin, Gary Vance, Dale Good, Shirley Bartholomew, Sparky Taft, younger brother Billy, etc

I did some engineering for them in the mid-'70s (Shirley Bartholomew was still ND there). Older gear but well-equipped and in reasonable shape. Doesn't look like the same building. Is Andy keeping the corner for the old transmitters, or are they somewhere else now?

Wondering about that little outbuilding. When I was there, the station had a government-provided generator and a "fallout shelter" with some very old production gear that, as I recall, was more likely to go up in a puff of smoke than provide a working studio.

I barely recognize it.....Wow.

But for a house? Well, it's mostly private (aside from people doing u-turns via your parking lot and radio geeks looking around - not much left here, I see.) 7 acres? Do those include the towers?

It still appears to be the KRKO backup. So if one were to mortgage the place and towers came included, every so often, do you have to give them a key to the gate so they can paint the towers or other work?

I want to look in that fallout shelter, sounds like a great place for parties...

I would be curious how the arrangement with KRKO works. Are you required to keep the towers on the site? Do they pay you rent for the land? Do they maintain the towers? That makes a huge difference in terms of who will end up buying the place.

Think about it this way: A similarly-sized house in similar condition in Seattle city limits would cost you the exact same price. The only difference is you get about 7 1/2 additional Acres that hopefully generate revenue via rent or just topple the towers, subdivide it into two additional parcels (I don’t know what the zoning laws are, but 2 Acres for rural residential is reasonable), and re-coop 1/4-1/3 of the closing price.

Unless it’s a sweetheart deal for the buyer with rent, or Andy has a long-term lease for the site, my guess is the buyer will likely knock em down. Let’s just be frank, the housing market for radio geeks in the Seattle area is a bit weak these days. And nobody besides radio geeks want towers nearby. Spoils the view...

[reply to Grounded Grid] Once we picked up the FM translators, Larimer Road became unnecessary as a deep backup. We had quotes at one time to rehabilitate Larimer Road as a 1000 Watt backup for KRKO and KKXA including converting the Gates BC-5 to 1520 AM. The infrastructure was mostly in place including audio processors and STL gear, but the translators do a better job of covering “Everett” than Larimer Road ever did with its night signal. The “fallout shelter” wasn’t going to do much in a disaster. It was a 12’ X 12’ Concrete cell with a steep wood ladder down a hatch to get to it with a single ceiling lightbulb and an electric baseboard wall heater, with most of the exterior exposed to the south, east, and north. That foul smelling, dark, disgusting echo chamber under the generator shed would have been completely worthless in the event of a nuclear attack, but rodents loved it.

seattlesarchiebunker said:

I would be curious how the arrangement with KRKO works. Are you required to keep the towers on the site? Do they pay you rent for the land? Do they maintain the towers? That makes a huge difference in terms of who will end up buying the place.

Think about it this way: A similarly-sized house in similar condition in Seattle city limits would cost you the exact same price. The only difference is you get about 7 1/2 additional Acres that hopefully generate revenue via rent or just topple the towers, subdivide it into two additional parcels (I don’t know what the zoning laws are, but 2 Acres for rural residential is reasonable), and re-coop 1/4-1/3 of the closing price.

Unless it’s a sweetheart deal for the buyer with rent, or Andy has a long-term lease for the site, my guess is the buyer will likely knock em down. Let’s just be frank, the housing market for radio geeks in the Seattle area is a bit weak these days. And nobody besides radio geeks want towers nearby. Spoils the view...

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The towers are no longer required for KRKO. Someone can have the entire building. If there is a ham operator, they can keep the towers and transmitters and reuse them at new frequencies. There’s $250,000 in free infrastructure for the right user. Otherwise, we have a quote to drop the towers and we’d likely be taking a hack saw to the transmitters if someone wants them out. There is no lease back arrangement. We can take the generator and use it elsewhere if someone doesn’t want it. The generator has very few hours on it.

Bongwater said:

I barely recognize it.....Wow.

But for a house? Well, it's mostly private (aside from people doing u-turns via your parking lot and radio geeks looking around - not much left here, I see.) 7 acres? Do those include the towers?

It still appears to be the KRKO backup. So if one were to mortgage the place and towers came included, every so often, do you have to give them a key to the gate so they can paint the towers or other work?

I want to look in that fallout shelter, sounds like a great place for parties...

Click to expand...

The fallout shelter is not what you imagine. It’s a 12’ X 12” concrete cell/echo chamber with one lightbulb, one baseboard heater, and nothing else. It’s dark, cold, and has a steep wooden ladder to get down with a 7’ ceiling. It’s pretty depressing. And if there were a nuclear strike, the need to #2 would drive you out of the shelter unless you really planned ahead with a bucket and kitty litter. The terrible vent on the lid would let more fallout into the shelter than you’d have if you’d remained inside the studios. That hole in the ground was dismal and dark. It wasn’t what you imagine at all.

As for using the site as a backup, KRKO and KKXA are out. We’re pulling the remaining gear out now.

Andrew Skotdal said:

we’d likely be taking a hack saw to the transmitters if someone wants them out.

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Please check your PMs

Andrew Skotdal said:

The fallout shelter is not what you imagine. It’s a 12’ X 12” concrete cell/echo chamber with one lightbulb, one baseboard heater, and nothing else. It’s dark, cold, and has a steep wooden ladder to get down with a 7’ ceiling. It’s pretty depressing. And if there were a nuclear strike, the need to #2 would drive you out of the shelter unless you really planned ahead with a bucket and kitty litter. The terrible vent on the lid would let more fallout into the shelter than you’d have if you’d remained inside the studios. That hole in the ground was dismal and dark. It wasn’t what you imagine at all.

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Awww damn!

And you're right. I was expecting a BIG underground, concrete room with "facilities". Your shelter isn't an anomaly. It really was an afterthought (if any) in all but a few shelters I have seen. They may have survived the blast. But they'd NEVER survive each other.

I also thought there would be a small studio or something down there. For a radio station in the heat of the Cold War. I admit I kinda expected all kinds of state of the art broadcast wizardry for it's time to keep KRKO going somehow. The KXLE building in Ellensburg and the KIRO building on Vashon were made to withstand anything (circa 1950.)

But unless the shelter is directly under or inside the main building, it's usually neglected and abandoned. Then forgotten until it's accidentally discovered again. Usually in the condition you described

Good grief no... KRKO's was just a "feel good" hole in the ground. The equipment, at least when I saw it, was a portable broadcast table that was so old, even the owners at the time couldn't have believed it had life left to give. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say they had to have something in there to prove to the Civil Defense people that it could actually be used.

Only saw the KXLE building from the inside once, back in the '70s. Recall it as being sturdy then, though maybe a little exposed. People might have survived a small blast, but I don't know about the tower.

Probably the most interesting shelter I've seen was the one at KSYC, Yreka, CA. The shelter had 3 or 4 large rooms and the studios, transmitter and automation systems were all in there. It was the working part of the radio station. I did some repair work for them, back in the mid-'70s. Don't recall it as a particularly pleasant place to work in... stuffy... being the walls were thick and the whole place was concrete.

Grounded Grid said:

Only saw the KXLE building from the inside once, back in the '70s. Recall it as being sturdy then, though maybe a little exposed. People might have survived a small blast, but I don't know about the tower.

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Just saw that bldg. last Friday and was amused that the front door was propped wide open! Homeland Security bulletins clearly haven't reached Ellensburg recently!

As someone who was born in the Burg, trust me when I say that not much of anything reaches Ellensburg "recently." Even WW3 (or is it WW4 by now, I lose track...) would show up 3 weeks late in the Kittyscratch Valley.