03/31/2022
UPDATE: (This is going to be a long one)
Hi all, this is Jenny, Roosterbat Studios and RBS Music Educations studio manager. I know a lot of you have been anxiously waiting for our next update, as we have not posted anything in a while. Unfortunately, this is not the update that we wanted to post. As most of you know the vision behind the studio and the music education center was not only to be a full-scale recording studio, but a music education center that catered to underprivileged kids / teens and children with disabilities in the community and surrounding communities. The building seemed to meet our needs in order to separate the studio and the education center so that we could run Roosterbat Studios as a separate entity from RBS Music Education Center, which we were opening as a non-profit. Our opening date was set for April 15th, and we were 3 weeks out from finishing construction. We had our engineers in place for the studio, our teachers in place that were donating their time for our non-profit, and many amazing donors, some big and some small that were just waiting for us to open our doors to get their initial donations out to us. The excitement was growing as the days creeped closer.
During the course of construction, we started noticing things that made us question the integrity of the building we were in. There was no insulation in any of the walls, so it was taking a lot of extra time and money to get the studio soundproofed. We had a few professional engineers come out from Arizona and LA to give us ideas on soundproofing. They were very helpful. As we ran into more problems, we realized that we had to start thinking about the kids that would be coming into the building. We needed to be in a safe place for them. On the advice of the Chamber of Commerce, who we had planned on working with closely, we had the Antioch Fire Marshal and Antioch Building Inspector in to do a full inspection of the building. This was March 7th. The minute they walked in the door we knew that it was not going to be good. All of our construction was up to code with no issues. The building itself however was not up to code. The sprinkler system was above the drop ceiling and needed to be brought down. There was also no record of the system ever being tested, so the Fire Marshal did not know if the current system even worked. There was not a fire wall in between our building and the neighboring business. There was not a second exit, which is required by the Village of Antioch. There was not an access point for the electrical panel in our building. The panel was located in the neighboring business. These were a few of the major issues with many more on both the Fire and Building Inspection Reports. The building should have been red tagged, but the Fire Marshall wanted to give the landlords a chance to fix the problems. The landlords unfortunately were not receptive to any of this initially. They first claimed we had to pay for all of the repairs that needed to be made to fix their building. Then they wanted us to split the bill, then said they were raising our rent to recoup the cost it would take for all of the things that needed to be done. After speaking with the Fire Marshal, building inspector and the Village code enforcer, who is also the Village attorney we found out that they could not legally do any of these things, as it is their responsibility to keep their building up to code. The Village Code Enforcer also told us that the landlords should have never rented the building to us because it was not safe for occupancy and that they were in breach of the lease.
So, the hard part began. As a group we made the decision to get everything out of the building before it was red tagged. We moved everything out on over the next two weeks, with our last day being March 20th. In the 5 months we were there, over $17,000 was spent to make this building what we envisioned for the community and the kids we wanted to work with, and to make an unbelievable studio that bands from all over would want to visit. John and Matt spent endless hours after their long days at their day jobs working on the construction part of the build. Snoop did all the wonderful graphics and helped with inventory, and many other important things that helped push us forward. As a group we are completely devastated over this. We will not get the time, energy or money that was put into this back. Moving forward in a different building is not an option at this point, because we will not recoup the money that was lost.
So, for now we are all stepping away from this venture and re-grouping. This is not a goodbye from the studio or the education center. The Fire Marshal, who was so kind through all of this, told us that the Village of Antioch really needed something like this, and that he loved the concept. This gave us all some hope that we were doing something pretty amazing.
Thank you to everyone that was on this adventure with us, whether it be helping in the studio, or your constant support here on social media. On an ending note I would like to tell John, Matt and Snoop how proud I am of them. The three of you really worked hard on this project and you should be extremely proud of yourselves for stepping outside of your comfort zones and doing something different. Let’s give them all some support in their other ventures moving forward.
John has some shows coming up with his band Greywall. Let’s show them some love and follow them on Facebook and Instagram, and if you can make it to their shows even better.
If you need amazing graphics done reach out to Snoop on Facebook or Instagram. He did all of our graphics throughout the building.
If you need floor work done let me, Snoop or John know and we will get you in touch with Matt. (He is not on social media.
Again, thank you all for the love and support.
Jenny
