Last week, the Philadelphia Inquirer put up for sale its landmark 18-story building, to help pay off its debt. Philadelphia Media Holdings could get as much as $70 million for the building.

The Boston Herald is also replacing its plant by striking an agreement with Development of Newton Lower Falls.

The owner of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Avista Capital Partners, is selling a few blocks to the Minnesota Vikings football team.

Sam Zell, in the process of acquiring Tribune Co., could be looking at selling some real-estate properties, including the 1925 neo-gothic Tribune Tower in Chicago and the Los Angeles Times building.

The acquisition or sale of newspaper buildings can also be motivated by editorial purposes – to a small extent. One of the reasons The New York Times moved into new headquarters was to work in a newsroom adapted to the era’s news necessities.

Yet “the longer-term trend toward selling off newspaper headquarters could mean the end of the era of great early 20th-century newspaper buildings, many built at a time when newspapers and their owners saw themselves as playing a grand civic role,” wrote Thaddeus Herrick, Wall Street Journal.

Indeed, the sale of historic newspaper buildings is symbolic of their evolving role and place in society. Although, with new workflows, technologies and newsroom organizations, newspapers don’t need the grand space and surfaces they once claimed. They don’t need a monumental building to affirm their vital mission. They can sell the building and earn some extra cash, as long as it helps putting out the news.

Source : Wall Street Journal