NPR’s new headquarters refuels funding debate

View Photo Gallery — A look inside NPR’s new headquarters: In NPR’s view, the building on North Capitol Street is efficient and cost-effective, but some question its $201 million price tag.

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By Paul Farhi, Published: June 21 E-mail the writer

NPR’s gleaming new headquarters building in the shadow of the Capitol in Washington has soaring ceilings, a “wellness” center, an employee gym and a gourmet cafe staffed by a resident chef.
This, as it turns out, could be a political problem.

NPR showed off the 400,000-square-foot complex, which has been open since April, to members of the media earlier this week. It immediately began drawing some grumbles from those who see the edifice as far too luxe for a nonprofit radio and digital-news organization that depends, in part, on taxpayer support. In effect, the building briefly became a new club with which to beat NPR over an old issue: whether public radio and television should be subsidized with federal and state funds.
The rumblings began after the widely read Drudge Report linked to a rather innocuous account of the news-media tour from the Web site FishBowlDC, which described the building’s features.
Soon, the blog-o-spheres and Twitter-verse were percolating with denunciations of the building’s cost and alleged excesses.
“They build a ‘News Palace’ and they still need taxpayer dollars?!?” tweeted Jim Farley, vice president of news for WTOP, the all-news radio station in Washington.
A blogger known as the Lonely Conservative sniped, “Who wouldn’t be jealous of working in such a lavish space, especially when one’s tax dollars help to fund” it?
And Michael Savage, the fire-breathing conservative radio host, took to his microphone to rail against the “incomprehensible” nature of NPR’s new digs. “They just opened a new building, NPR,” sneered Savage on his syndicated show. “A new building they’re showing off how wonderful it is in Washington, D.C. You will not believe the edifice they built for themselves. It’s astounding. You cannot believe what they gave themselves at NPR. . . . How much money did that cost to build?”
Answer: $201 million, or a bit more than NPR’s annual operating budget of $174.7 million in fiscal 2013.
But is that excessive? In NPR’s view, the new building on North Capitol Street is both efficient and cost-effective, particularly compared with its former headquarters a few blocks west on Massachusetts Avenue. NPR, with 840 employees, said it had outgrown the old building, which was increasingly decrepit and costly to maintain. The building is being torn down.
“The reality is, we had to move,” said Emma Carrasco, NPR’s chief marketing officer, in an interview. “When we looked at the possibility of retrofitting our existing buildings and consolidating [into the old headquarters], it really wasn’t feasible. So building a cost-effective building was the most prudent decision for us. We based it on pure economics and our staffing and technological needs.”
What’s more, NPR officials point out, the new headquarters wasn’t financed with tax dollars, at least not directly. The organization raised funds through a combination of tax-free bonds, individual donations and the proceeds from the sale of its old building.
In addition, the District granted $40 million in tax abatements and froze property taxes on the site for 20 years as part of a deal to keep NPR from moving out of the city. NPR had considered a site in Silver Spring.