More changes in store for News Tribune, Telegram

Even more changes are coming to the Duluth News Tribune.

Once its old press shuts down and the newspaper’s 50 production employees move to a new production center on Airpark Boulevard, the basement level of the paper’s downtown building will be empty.

So except for a News Tribune reception desk to help walk-in customers, by April its staff on the first floor will move to the second floor. The newspaper will then seek a tenant for its 10,000-square-foot first floor, said Publisher Ken Browall, noting that staff levels won’t change.

“We own the building and we will keep it, because we believe the newspaper needs to have a presence downtown and in the community,” he said. “It’s been a fixture downtown since the newspaper began.”

Meanwhile, the building that has housed the Superior Telegram since the 1970s at 1226 Ogden Ave. soon will be for sale.

Since its press shut down last year and its production transferred to the News Tribune, 20,000 square feet of the Telegram’s 25,000-square-foot building has been empty.

The company held onto the building and considered it briefly for the new press, but the Telegram building was neither large enough nor did it have needed dock facilities or garage doors, said News Tribune Publisher Ken Browall, former publisher of the Telegram.

Another space is being sought for the Telegram’s 12 employees.

When the Telegram staff will move and where has yet to be determined. Browall said that decision will be made when the building is sold.

Tags: news, business