Big news out of The Star tonight…
Just days after officially posting notice that the headquarters building at 1729 Grand Blvd. and the printing plant on McGee Street were for sale, KC Star publisher Tony Berg this afternoon told employees the building had been sold.
The three-story, Italian Renaissance-style building has been home to The Star since 1911.
The fate of the printing plant, which was completed in 2006 at a cost of $200 million, is uncertain. However, The Star’s owner, McClatchy Co., has been seeking to sell it — along with the main building — and lease it back for an initial term, of 15 years.
One longtime reporter, Matt Campbell, posted this on Facebook tonight…
“Sadly, publisher Tony Berg today confirmed that McClatchy is selling the old brick home of The Kansas City Star. A century or so of history was reported and written in that second-floor newsroom.
It used to be full of (cigarette and cigar) smoke and (whiskey) bottles in desk drawers. Since I’ve known it there have been many makeovers. But it is still a huge space, with thick support columns and it is still a place where truth is distilled.
The group that gathered here at 4 p.m. today numbered about 100. We were told the population of the building is now 243. I don’t know if that reflects the Monday layoffs. (More about that in a minute.) There used to be 1,700-1,800 people in this building.
You can almost hear the wind in here now. If you wander this building…you find many weird spaces. It’s a great place…William Rockhill Nelson’s old office at the southeast corner of the newsroom is now a place where reporters learn how to do their own videos.
We’re told the buyer of the old building wants to convert it to commercial and residential use.
We survivors are going to move to the green glass printing building at 16th and McGee. In about a year.
It won’t be the same, but The Star will still be looking over the city.”
Initially, the building had no private offices. The Star’s website says that was because Nelson, The Star’s founder, “wants everyone to feel equal; others say it is because he wants to watch his help.”
It’s been public information for about a year now that the 1729 Grand building and the printing plant were for sale. The prospect of a sale became more palpable last week, however, with publication of a three-paragraph item that cited a commercial real estate listing placing the price tag of the properties at $46 million.
The listing advertised three parcels with a total of 650,000 square feet of building space on 8.3 acres. The listing did not specify how many buildings were for sale, but it included photos of the printing plant and the headquarters building.
**
Those of us who worked at 1729 Grand will be sorry to see the building transformed from its journalistic purpose. To me, though, the move makes a lot of sense.
The printing plant appears to be profitable. Several publications besides The Star are printed there, including the Topeka Capital-Journal, the Lawrence Journal-World, the Pitch (which, by the way, is going down to once a month from once a week) and the regional editions of the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
Also, it’s modern and large and can certainly accommodate an additional 243 employees.
Operating the 1729 Grand building, on the other hand, has to be a loser for McClatchy. The best thing it has going for it is it’s in the booming Crossroads District. New buildings, including hotels and apartments, have been going up and opening just west of The Star building, and lots of popular bars and restaurants dot the area.
As a beacon of journalism and a symbol of civic power, the 1729 Grand building has been fading — no different than many other other old-time newspaper buildings around the country. For the past several years it has been an anachronism, an institution not in keeping with the hip and fast-changing neighborhood around it.
Physical change was already taking place on former Star property. Earlier this month, the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection — the Leawood-based behemoth — broke ground on a new church building, which will sit on on 1.2 acres that formerly was a parking lot for Star employees.
Before news of the 1729 Grand sale became public tonight, former KC Star development reporter Kevin Collison sent an email to several former colleagues, saying, “Maybe the congregation can pray The Star back to stability.”
We can now hold the prayers; The Star is going in a different direction.
**
Steve Rosen
More news from The Star…Steve Rosen, a longtime editorial employee, has been laid off. In an email to “friends and colleagues” Wednesday night, Rosen wrote:
“It pains me to inform you of my personal news. I learned late Monday that my news editor position at The Star is being eliminated. I am taking the severance package and my last official day on the job is March 31. While that’s not the way I wanted to go out after 38-plus years at 18th and Grand, you don’t always get to have things your way. The newspaper industry, and The Star and McClatchy in particular, remain in dark times, and the transition to digital continues to take its toll.”
I have also heard reports — unverified at this point — that Joe Ledford of the photo staff and Don Munday, a copy editor and resident Monday morning poet, have also been laid off. Each has more than 20 years of service.
The layoffs signal the paper’s ongoing movement away from senior people with relatively large salaries to bring in younger people who starting at salaries half, or less, of what the veterans were making…Like I said, The Star is going in a different direction.
“The layoffs signal the paper’s ongoing movement away from senior people with relatively large salaries to bring in younger people who starting at salaries half, or less, of what the veterans were making”
Or, as we used to call them in my old union days, scabs.
You certainly can’t blame young people who apply for and accept jobs at major dailies when all they want to do is get their foot in the door of a struggling industry. I remember how thrilled I was when I was hired at The Star in the fall of 1969 and was offered a salary, as I recall, of $500 a month — which was more than the $92.50 a week I had been making back in Covington, KY.
My hat is off to those young people, and I’ve been heartened to see The Star hiring young journalists. It is a shame to see all that experience — and people I know and like — get pushed out. But, as Rosen eloquently said, employees aren’t in charge of their fates.
Though not a surprise, still a very sad signal of change for all of Kansas City and anyone who ever walked the stairs from the second floor newsroom to drop a dime for a cup of coffee in the composing room.
That’s one trip I never made, although I did make many a trip to the third-floor Nelson Room for a delectable lunch.
I was privileged to work with Steve Rosen for many years at the Star and Times, and more recently as a freelancer. He’s one of the best editors and best journalists I’ve ever known. He asks reporters the kinds of questions that add meat to a story, and then he polishes up the writing and makes it read better. He expects a lot but he also shows you respect, and he is the emblem of grace under pressure.
We salute you, Steve Rosen, all the BEST to you.
Great tribute, Julius. He’s one of those editors who can walk that fine line between friend and manager. And he’s got that even-keel temperament that is so valuable in a manager. (Wish I’d had more of those qualities!)
This may sound funny (and I always feel like I’m intruding on your world when I comment on a story like this), but Steve just looks like he would be the way you all describe. I shall also miss the quirky wit and wisdom of Don Munday. Damn!
I had only a few interactions with Steve Rosen, but they were all very positive and Julius is right about the tough but respectful editor that he has been. Hiring young reporters is great but when you let long-time veterans like Steve go, you’re simply taking one step forward and three steps back.
The sale of 1729 Grand was inevitable, but I must say that the news has rattled me a bit. The old building has been part of my life since I was 5 years old, in 1947. My father worked in the AP bureau, which was then on the third floor, and he’d take me to work with him from time to time. He and his coworkers named me an honorary copyboy. The bureau, and my dad, were still on the third floor when I arrived to work as a nightside summer intern for The Star in 1962.
I worked for The Kansas City Times three times, which may be a record, spanning jobs from obit writer to police reporter to nightlife columnist to suburban editor and, in my last short and weird stop on the second floor, to managing editor. The last time I was in the building my old office was not only vacant but it had become the place where broken-down office chairs went to die. The dust was pretty thick, which was a bad metaphor — and a prophesy of today’s news.
My collection of memorabilia from this identity-forming place includes an old spike that was cast in the Star foundry — you can read “Kansas City Star” in its type-metal base. With the building soon to be repurposed, I’m sure glad I kept that spike.
Good to hear your memories, Tom. Of course, I was well aware of your stint as M.E. (as I recall, Missouri voters rejected “riverboat” casinos — later turned around and approved it — when you and Mike Kelley held sway) but not about your earlier years at The Star or your father’s employment at the AP.
Odd, this news has yet to appear in the on-line Star.
Anyone else not seeing any comments on any of the on-line stories? I sent them an email a couple days ago but haven’t received a reply.
The situation is probably still tentative and in flux, so I’m not surprised nothing has appeared in The Star, either online or in print. It should be coming soon, though, now that Berg has summoned the staff and made an announcement.
…I don’t follow the comments on most online stories, but if there is a problem or has been a change in policy, the readers should be informed.
By the way, Gayle, never feel like you’re intruding on “the secret society of journalism.” We insiders want to get out of our ping-pong game and hear what readers are thinking and what their impressions are. After all, it’s the readers — and the impressions they draw — that make newspapers succeed or fail.
Midwestern newspapers struggle in the Midwest, legacy newspapers on the coasts grow under the regime of Trump. Is it the reporting? Is it the management? Or both?
The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have been cutting their newsrooms staffs as well. I think the only large U.S. metro daily that isn’t facing struggles right now is the Washington Post, under the generous ownership of billionaire Jeff Bezos.
I’m cheering on The Post. They’ve been giving The Times a run for its money with their growth and aggressiveness.
I think you need to recheck your facts. A few weeks ago the NYT announced an increase in hiring in editorial. And, I believe, the LA Times has also added staff.
Rob Roberts of the Kansas City Business Journal is reporting today that the 1729 Grand building has attracted a “letter of intent” from an undisclosed prospective buyer. A closing date has not been set.
Roberts quoted CBRE investment specialist Randy Getz as saying: “It’s one of those ‘time will tell’ sorts of things. I can’t relate more until the deal actually concludes, if it concludes.”
Getz also told Roberts the other two parts of the portfolio — the 8-story printing plant and a parking lot at 1708 Locust — are being marketed and are “available.”
Getz is based in Sacramento, home of the newspaper’s parent company, McClatchy Co.
Very sad to hear about the sale of 1729 Grand. When I first walked into it at 6:30 a.m. on the Monday after the election in November 1978 (my first day on the job as managing editor of The Star), I thought it was so cool. How else to describe a huge room with no offices. Just two years earlier, before the Star was sold to Capital Cities, the south wall of the room was lined with desks of the top brass. When I arrived, The Star ME’s desk was out in the open one row behind the City Desk. Reporters, editors, photographers and artists would wander from time to time up to my desk to talk about whatever issues were on their mind. I thought it was fantastic; offices in many ways were prisons. The open set-up made it easier and quicker to deal with many issues.
As for Steve Rosen, it’s also sad to see him leave. He was an up-and-coming reporter in the ’70s and ’80s when I was there. He should not forget that for most of his years he worked for a high-quality metro newspaper with an amazingly talented staff, dozens of terrific journalists on both The Star and Times before the papers were consolidated. And the staff was just as terrific in the early years of consolidation, before classified advertising (60 per cent of the paper’s total revenue) began drifting to the internet. And before the insane butchering of employees and the news hole began.
One last note on the possible sale of the printing facility: When it was approved at a cost of $200 million in 2004, I thought it surely would be a failing project. I know that’s easy to say 13 years later. But the handwriting was clearly on the wall in 2004-2005. I retired from The Sun in Baltimore in 2002, when already we were losing revenue to the internet and had no clue what to do about it. Making matters worse was The Tribune Co., which bought the Times Mirror papers in June 2000 and began mismanaging all of them, including The Sun, from Day One. So it was not hard to see by 2004 that spending $200 million on a new press was not likely to be a smart investment in an industry headed in the wrong direction with few answers in sight.
Terrific insight there from one of the great editors in KC Star history and retired publisher of the Baltimore Sun.
From the perspective of editorial employees in the newsroom, Art Brisbane’s announcement in 2004 of plans to build (under Knight Ridder) a $199 million printing plant was exciting news. The paper had muddled along with ancient presses in the sub-basement of The Star for many years. Most of us in the newsroom didn’t understand at that point that newspaper advertising was starting to tail off. Business-side managers like Mike Waller, on the other hand, saw the telltale signs of a sagging industry. Tony Ridder should have seen that, too, but, nevertheless, he was smart enough two years later — just before the plant was completed — to put the Knight Ridder chain up for sale.
McClatchy, in buying the Knight Ridder papers, was the biggest sucker. Right there with McClatchy was Lee Enterprises of the Quad Cities area, which made an equally foolish bet buying the St. Louis Post Dispatch and a few other affiliated papers.
In short order it became clear those were some of the worst purchases – along with Tribune Co.’s purchase of Times Mirror — in newspaper-industry history.
On the question of added editorial at the NYT, here’s a link to their public memo about adding resources to editorial to cover Trump, http://www.nytco.com/from-dean-and-joe-the-year-ahead/. Saying they added staff was not mentioned in the memo. The LA Times did add a few editorial positions, here’s a link http://www.latimes.com/local/readers-rep/la-rr-times-leadership-reorg-mitra-kalita-20150318-story.html.
Hate to see the carnage continue, Jim, as I’m sure we all do. It’s an ongoing downward direction The Star is heading.
At least we will be able to walk into the building again…in a way, it’s almost like winning parole for the old lady.
Maybe for a brief period when it’s under reconstruction…but not after they put in a new, expanded guard and reception station in the lobby. But at least you’ll be able to walk in and tell the guard, “Yes, I remember Tom.”
The New York Times and Los Angeles Times indeed are working hard to innovate. But the New York Times acknowledges, as can be seen in the link provided by Bruce, that it is going to make cuts in its newsroom editing ranks.
Meantime, former Knight Ridder CEO Tony Ridder doesn’t deserve a whole lot of credit for putting the chain up for sale when he did. Money manager Bruce Sherman, whose Private Capital Management firm was Knight Ridder’s largest shareholder, forced Knight Ridder to put itself up for sale when the company’s stock performance slipped.
I forgot about the rump shareholder, Julius…You’re right, that was the biggest factor in the decision to sell.
I know that people question the construction of the production facility in the 2000s when the decline of the newspaper escalated. But I think it was the right call. The printing presses, from what I recall hearing, were on their last leg. Something had to be done. At that time, The Star took a very strong stance on the need to revitalize Downtown. To build a new production facility out in southern Johnson County or Lee’s Summit would have been hypocritical. What I did object too, however, was The Star seeking _ and receiving_ tax incentives to build the thing.
Construction of the plant certainly was a boost to downtown. Brisbane was a consistent promoter of downtown revival.
Speaking of printing presses….The old ones in the basement of 1729 were a few years ago dismantled and taken away by a scrap dealer. I wondered about the soil contamination they may have caused after decades of use. That could be expensive to fix and the tentative sale may have a provision for some soil tests
I wondered if the old presses were still there; that must have been quite an extraction.
As a current longtime staffer I can tell you we are all excited to move out of that brick tomb. No nostalgia. Lots of memories, of course, but not all of them happy. The new space in the press plant is spectacular. Bright. Cheery. Meanwhile some developer can breathe life into that brick hulk at 1729 Grand.
Good to hear from you, Mike…It had to be difficult watching and feeling the energy drain out of that building. It needs a makeover from the inside out.
Here’s a link to a story about the Star building sale that Kevin Collison, former Star development reporter, wrote for KCUR:
http://kcur.org/post/kc-star-plans-sell-building-where-generations-reporters-have-labored-1911#stream/0
Mike Waller: I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your book about Durand’s Marvelous Merchants, which I bought, as you might guess, shortly after the decision was made to close The Star’s off-site bookstore. I bought a bunch of books over there that day. Ironically enough, the Star carrier route I have been helping with two days a week includes that location. You perhaps remember my father, the late Dick Nichols, from your time at The Star. He was a longtime copy editor on the City Desk, and fond are my many memories of being able to freely visit him there while he was working..
‘Tis a sad day, a sad day indeed,
When bad news about newspapers is seemingly all I ever get to read;
The Merchants are gone, the Linotype, too;
Now we’re stuck with the Internet – what’s a fellow to do?
Meantime, the bloodletting continues at my home town newspaper, the Commercial Appeal in Memphis:
https://www.memphisdailynews.com/news/2017/mar/29/gannett-cuts-30-percent-of-commercial-appeal-newsroom/
This story in the Nashville Scene says cuts at Gannett papers in Tennessee “largely follow the ‘Newsroom of the Future’ model implemented in Nashville, which slices out middle managers and copy desks in favor of a newsroom with editors and planners at the top and reporters at the bottom, with little in between.”
http://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pith-in-the-wind/article/20856457/gannett-slashes-staffs-at-tennessee-papers