The Washington Post, another newspaper struggling to trim costs, is planning to move out of the District of Columbia headquarters where its news staff has worked for nearly four decades.
Katharine Weymouth, the paper?s publisher, sent a memo to the staff on Friday morning announcing that the company was looking into a move and had hired two real estate firms, Studley Inc. and JM Zell Partners, as advisers. The company is also interviewing space planners and architects for guidance.
?Our preliminary analysis suggests that a move will make good operational and economic sense, however we have not yet decided on where or when,? Ms. Weymouth said in her memo.
Since the company removed its presses more than a decade ago, Ms. Weymouth said, ?we are no longer tied to this particular location.?
According to the company?s Web site, a $5 million printing plant was built at the current location on 15th Street NW in 1950, and The Post?s $25 million headquarters building was officially dedicated there in October 1973. Katharine Graham, the former publisher and Ms. Weymouth?s grandmother, originally wanted I. M. Pei to design the building in the shape of a typewriter, according to Dave Kindred, a former Post columnist who wrote a 2010 book about the paper, ?Morning Miracle: Inside The Washington Post.? But that plan proved too costly.
Over the years, The Washington Post newsroom has been a destination for heads of state, business executives and Hollywood moguls and stars. An article in The Post in April 1975 about the filming of ?All the President?s Men? said the newspaper allowed filmmakers to shoot only the building?s exterior. But film crews passed through repeatedly to ?soak up authenticity, rub elbows with newspaper people and learn the routine of a daily newspaper.?
Mr. Kindred recalled that when he was reporting his book between 2007 and 2009, he rode an elevator with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who had been visiting Donald E. Graham, Ms. Graham?s son and chief executive of the Washington Post Company. Mr. Kindred also recalled a day when the actor Brad Pitt stopped by to glean inspiration for a movie he was working on.
?Everyone has passed through at one time or another,? said Mr. Kindred.
Newspapers around the country are trying to find ways to cut costs as they battle a troubled advertising environment and their readers migrate to digital news sources. The Post underwent a major shake-up last fall when Ms. Weymouth abruptly replaced the paper?s executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, with Martin Baron, editor of The Boston Globe.
Andrew J. Asbill, a Washington-based director of the capital markets group at Cushman & Wakefield, said that whoever purchased the headquarters would most likely tear it down and rebuild because it?s an older building and relatively far from the Metro.
Ms. Weymouth?s memo did not say where the company was looking to relocate.
Source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/washington-post-says-it-will-seek-new-home/
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