KQED’s $91 Million Fixer-Upper
• The Board of Directors of KQED/San Francisco has approved a major two-year renovation project of the company’s headquarters at 2601 Mariposa Street. The KQED Board of Directors voted to renovate the current headquarters, which KQED owns, after a yearlong due diligence process. The building has been KQED’s home since 1992 when KQED was primarily a television and radio station with 200 employees, and the current configuration of the building reflects the industrial nature of broadcast production at that time. Today, KQED has more than 450 employees with a transformed organizational structure built on cross-platform collaboration, community engagement and innovation. The new layout will be more conducive to collaboration and innovation, and can accommodate up to 40 percent further growth.
“Over the past five years, KQED has undergone a dramatic transformation from a traditional broadcaster to a digital multimedia journalism and education service aligned to the 21st century needs of the people of the Bay Area,” says KQED President and CEO John Boland. “As a result, we have experienced tremendous growth in both the number of people we serve and our staff size. Our headquarters building in San Francisco was built for the KQED of 25 years ago, so we must transform the facility for the KQED of today.”
The renovations are expected to cost $91 million, and construction is expected to begin this summer with staffers relocating to a temporary location at 50 Beale Street. The new headquarters will be open in the winter of 2021. All of KQED’s broadcast and digital services will continue uninterrupted during the transition.
