The Minnesota Star Tribune is closing its
Minneapolis printing plant, and will lay off of 125 employees, the Star Tribune reports.
Printing will be moved to a Gannett facility in Des Moines on
December 28.
The paper will continue to be printed seven days a week, but deadlines will be earlier and late sports scores and some breaking stories will not make the next day’s edition.
But they can be read online.
The so-called Heritage plant, which was opened 40 years ago, will be sold.
“Nothing about this is
easy,” says Steve Grove, publisher and CEO of the Star Tribune. “We’re just changing how we produce that paper.”
The change will
result in “several millions” in annual savings and will “help us preserve resources, invest in our digital transformation and continue delivering the high-quality journalism
Minnesotans count on,” Grove adds, according to the paper.
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Gannett itself is closing some print operations. It announced in July that it would shutter its Columbia, Missouri plant and
move printing of the Columbia Daily Tribune, the Springfield News-Leader and USA Today to Des Moines.
Gannett announced earlier this year that
it would close its Sterling Heights, Michigan plant that prints the Detroit Free Press and other publications in August.
Outside estimates stated that 109 jobs would be
lost.
In addition, Gannett reported late last year that it would close the facility that printed The Providence Journal, and will move the paper’s printing to New
Jersey -- resulting in the loss of 136 jobs, both full- and part-time, the Journal reported.
And, Gannett said it would close the Cherry Hill, New Jersey facility that
served the Courier-Post and several other newspapers in southern New Jersey, effective in June.
An estimated 140 jobs would be cut.
“This is really a
business decision,” Grove states of the Star-Tribune decision. “We’re one of the last major newspapers in the country that owns its own printing facility.”