A contract was signed last week allowing the WNIU radio station to borrow $650,000 to convert and move into the Palmer Music Building one year from now.

The foundation, which owns the building on north First Street in DeKalb, will borrow $650,000 from the National Bank and Trust in Sycamore to convert the former Palmer Music Building to the NIU Broadcast Center with WNIU as the primary occupant. The contract was signed by NIU and the NIU Foundation through a contract-to-purchase agreement, requiring NIU to reimburse the foundation for its costs over a 10-year period. After that time, NIU will own the building.

“WNIU will go from having one of the worst broadcast facilities in public radio to one of the top five in the country,” said Mike Lazar, the station’s general manager.

Earlier, Tom Montiegel, NIU vice president for development and university relations, said the agreement benefits all parties. “WNIU will have the facilities and the space it has needed for years and the university will get the building for the cost of the renovations, with all other costs underwritten by private benefactors through donations to the foundation,” Montiegel said.

The public radio station currently is housed in Kishwaukee Hall on College Avenue, just east of the Kishwaukee River. “We (WNIU) are moving for various reasons and we have been looking for over 13 years,” said Lazar. “The heating and air-conditioning is hard to control, the Hall is old and it is falling apart and we work in inadequate space.”

NIU’s student-run radio station WKDI is also moving to the new center along with the auxiliary offices and studios for the Northern Illinois Radio Information Service for the blind and print-handicapped. Its main office will be relocated to new facilities in Rockford.

The center also will include a performance studio, control room and a conference/classroom for possible use by NIU’s music school and engineering college.