Providence Journal printing facility listed for $8M

Updated at 4:32 p.m. on Oct. 6, 2021.

THE 158,400-SQUARE-FOOT PRINTING PLANT used by the Providence Journal was put up for sale by parent company Gannett Co., in a leaseback package with an asking price of $8 million. / COURTESY BELLCORNERSTONE
THE 158,400-SQUARE-FOOT PRINTING PLANT used by the Providence Journal was put up for sale by parent company Gannett Co., in a leaseback package with an asking price of $8 million. / COURTESY BELLCORNERSTONE

PROVIDENCE – The 158,400-square-foot printing plant used by The Providence Journal was put up for sale by parent company Gannett Co., as part of a leaseback package that would allow the newspaper to continue using the facility for at least 10 years.

The 204 Kinsley Ave. Providence Journal production facility was recently listed for sale by New York-based real estate company BellCornerstone with an $8 million asking price.

As part of the offer, Gannett requires a lease to continue using the printing plant to produce the Providence Journal and its other newspapers, with an annual leaseback rent of $633,600 over the course of 10 years, with Gannett provided the right to opt out halfway through the deal. Annual operating costs for the building, according to marketing materials from BellCornerstone, were $1.69 million last year, including more than $1 million for utilities, $178,759 in repairs and $331,621 in property taxes.

Built in 1989 and spanning three parcels totaling nearly 11 acres, the newspaper production facility was purchased seven years ago by Gannett (then known as GateHouse Media, before it acquired the media company behind the USA Today and other daily newspapers around the country). Prior to 1990s, The Providence Journal printed its daily newspaper from a plant within its 75 Fountain St. office.

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When Gannett purchased The Providence Journal in 2014 in a $46 million deal, the Kinsley Ave production facility was a selling point, as Gannett was able to consolidate the production of various other newspapers that it bought up in the region over the past 15 years, such as the Taunton Daily Gazette and The Herald News in Fall River, and then later the New Bedford Standard-Times and Cape Cod Times.

Bernie Szachara, Gannett’s president of U.S. publishing operations, offered a statement Wednesday afternoon responding to questions about the future of the newspaper company’s print editions, claiming that the planned sale of the printing facility would not lead to any changes.

“We are very much committed to the future of print newspapers, including The Providence Journal, and are always weighing the financial impacts of long-term property leases vs. owning actual real estate,” Szachara said. “This potential change will not impact The Providence Journal print publication or quality of work produced by our dedicated staff. In addition, we are proud to have a robust list of commercial clients, in Providence and across Gannett’s extensive network of printing facilities and partnerships, that rely on us for their printing and production needs.”

Gannett also provided a list of the newspapers it currently prints at the Providence facility, including the following publications: USA TODAY, the Newport Daily News, the Cape Cod Times, the Fall River Herald, the Taunton Daily Gazette, The Gardner News, The Enterprise of Brockton, The Patriot Ledger of Quincy, the Milford Daily News, the MetroWest Daily News, the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, the New Bedford Standard-Times and The Bulletin of Norwich.

The Providence Journal printing facility is one of four properties that Gannett is offering as part of a leaseback portfolio, with asking prices totaling $26.1 million. The other facilities include those used by the The Clarion-Ledger in Mississippi, The Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina and the Knoxville News Sentinel in Tennessee.

Dan Kennedy, a media news analyst and professor of journalism at Northeastern University, said Gannett may be trying to milk some money out of the printing plant through the leaseback deal, but that doesn’t mean the Journal and other newspapers will be ceasing their print editions anytime soon.

“It’s no secret that Gannett had taken on a lot of debt, but this seems like it’s too small a deal to make much of a difference,” Kennedy said to PBN. “It’s also difficult to see how this gets the company any closer to the day when it goes all digital since it appears ready to keep printing for another five or 10 years. Maybe Gannett executives just want to get out of the real estate business — but I’m not privy to their thinking.”

Update: Adds a response from Gannett in paragraphs 6-8.

Marc Larocque is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Larocque@PBN.com.

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