Arts & Entertainment
WPPB 88.3 in Talks to Move to Southampton Village Hall
Public radio station could take over the presently empty and gutted third floor.
The plan for 88.3 FM Peconic Public Broadcasting to move its studio into part of 25 Jobs Lane, the former site of the Parrish Art Museum, could be complemented by the relocation of the radio station's offices to Southampton Village Hall.
Mayor Mark Epley said the village and the radio station have not put anything in writing yet, but they have been discussing WPPB taking over the third floor of the three-story municipal building.
The second and third floors of Village Hall have been empty and gutted for more than 10 years, since the Police Department moved to a new facility on Windmill Lane. But now, Epley said, the village expects the installation of an elevator in the Village Hall vestibule will begin within a few months, making the building Americans with Disabilities Act compliant. The village will renovate the second floor so the Building Department can move in, and so the village will no longer have to pay rent on the current Building Department office on Hill Street.
The radio station is currently located in the same office building as the Building Department, at 71 Hill Street, since it moved off the Stony Brook Southampton campus in 2010. Then known as WLIU, the station had long resided at the campus, which had been known as Southampton College until Long Island University sold the school to Stony Brook University in 2006.
Though the 71 Hill Street space was not ideal for a radio station, WPPB adapted. Now the radio station has the opportunity to start with a blank canvas on the third floor of Village Hall.
Epley said the radio station is bringing in an engineer. WPPB would pay for all the third-floor renovations and receive credit toward leasing the space, under the tentative plans. "They're going to make a significant capital investment into a village property," the mayor said.
As for 25 Jobs Lane, the village is in the middle of hammering out all the details of a lease agreement with Southampton Center for the Arts, a new nonprofit the village had a hand in creating. Southampton Center is creating a pilot season of programming this summer and will fundraise to completely renovate and improve the historic, but neglected, building. Epley said the renovations will include an 88.3 FM studio, which he hopes will broadcast Southampton Center programs as they are happening.
The WPPB-Southampton Center partnership will be mutually beneficial while also providing economic stimulus to the village and bringing in grant money, Epley said. "Partnering with another not-for-profit entity like that only strengthens your grant applications."
