Last month, KCUR moved into its new offices on the Country Club Plaza.
In December, the University of Missouri-Kansas City — which owns the license of KCUR — gave the station just over a month to vacate its longtime offices at 4825 Troost Avenue because the building was deteriorating.
Without a replacement office, most employees worked from home while broadcast operations such as Up To Date temporarily took place from the basement of 4747 Troost next door.
In recent weeks, the organization has settled into its new home at the Park Plaza office building on 47th Street. Leaders at the station say they are "thrilled to be back together" in one space.
"We've been apart more than we've been together this year," said Sarah Morris, KCUR's general manager. "I think it's evident in the way that folks are interacting that it enhances the work, I think it enhances the joy. I just think that it's been great."
@kcur893 Kansas City’s NPR station has found a new home. And it has WINDOWS!!!! 🪟🌅 In January, KCUR staff had to suddenly vacate our offices at 4825 Troost Avenue. Since then, our staff has been working remotely in their homes or in closet-sized studios in the basement of a neighboring building. But now, after a months-long search and several moving days, we’ve finally set up shop in a new studio space on the Country Club Plaza! While our listeners may not have noticed much disruption in our programming (We worked hard to keep it that way!), moving a whole radio station is anything but easy. The search for this space and our move into it took hundreds of hours of work and a dedicated team of KCUR staff and volunteers to pull off. We want you to meet some of them, hear how they made our move happen, and let them share what makes all their hard work worth it. 🎤 Hosted by Halle Jackson 💬Featuring interviews with Chris Prewitt, Rachel Anders, Sam Wisman and Claus Wawrzinek 🎬 Filmed and produced by Zach Perez #kansascity #radio #donatenow ♬ original sound - KCUR - Kansas City
Chris Prewitt, KCUR's director of technology and broadcast operations, led a team of people that included Claus Wawrzinek, Rachel Anders and Sam Wisman to move the station's studios twice in less than a year. Morris called Chris and his team the "unsung heroes" of 2026.
"Ultimately, our goal was to make this the least disruptive that it could be for our audience," Morris said. "It was incredibly disruptive for us, and we definitely had some blips and and skips along the way with our our broadcast signal. But, Chris and and his team just pulled off a miracle."
The Kansas City community and others in the NPR network also stepped up to help make the move possible.
"We've had volunteers that have stepped in and have helped with, not just moving and schlepping boxes and all of that kind of stuff, but doing actual broadcast engineering to help us out," Morris explained. "We've had partners across the the country offer to help us out. We've had some folks from Columbia that were essential. Our friends at NPR had provided some technology that we needed when our satellite dish wasn't going to be functioning. I mean, it has taken a village."
Public media is now over a year removed from having its federal funding cut, after Congress agreed to rescind already-approved money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting at the order of President Donald Trump. While the community has stepped up in a big way to keep KCUR on the air, navigating that loss of support remains a central focus for KCUR and other public media stations.
"Every year now in July, we start the year with a half million dollars less money than we used to get on the regular for 50 years," Morris explained. "So, for us to be able to continue to provide the services we provide at the level we've always provided them, we've got to close that gap every year and then some. So, I think that's what is sort of the message I want to make sure that folks understand, is that this thing that happened to our system that rocked our world last year — it just started last year. We didn't solve for it."
- Sarah Morris, KCUR general manager
- Lisa Rodriguez, KCUR director of content and journalism
