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Moody Foundation to give to Austin PBS
By Nick Cenegy
Contributor
Published October 25, 2009
GALVESTON — Galveston-based Moody Foundation announced last week it plans to contribute $2.5 million in the next two years to KLRU-TV, Austin’s PBS station, to help outfit the station’s planned Austin City Limits venue in downtown Austin.
The venue, to be christened the Moody Theatre, and the $30 million Austin City Limits studio are part of a downtown development that includes a hotel, condominiums, retail and restaurant space.
The developer, Stratus Properties, is footing the bill for the buildings, but KLRU is responsible for outfitting its studios and the production and broadcasting equipment, according to a KLRU press release.
The station hopes to raise $6.5 million to purchase the high-definition production equipment it needs to outfit the new theater.
KLRU’s CEO and general manager, Bill Stotesbery, was not available for comment Friday but said in a release the contribution was a remarkable opportunity for the station.
“We are very proud to be a beneficiary of the foundation’s generosity, and we are honored that they believe this project is significant enough to the community to warrant an investment of this magnitude,” he said in the statement.
KLRU announced the foundation’s gift during a capital campaign Thursday.
Peter Moore, grants director for the Moody Foundation, said the station submitted an application and the trustees appreciated what Austin City Limits means to the community and creative economy of the state’s music capital.
The funds require a one-to-one match, he said.
The Moody Foundation is a broad-based private foundation established in Galveston in 1942 by William Lewis Moody Jr. and his wife, Libbie Rice Shearn Moody.
It has funded major projects in the area and in the state, including Moody Gardens and the Transitional Learning Center in Galveston.
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