Philly daily newspapers in search for new home
Will old Strawbridge's or ex-Rohm and Haas be new newsroom?
Philly daily newspapers in search for new home
Joseph N. DiStefano
Philadelphia Media Network, which owns the Inquirer, Daily News and philly.com, is looking at the 8th and Market St. building that once housed the former Strawbridge & Clothier’s flagship retail store, and at Dow Chemical Co.'s former Rohm and Haas building at 6th and Market on Independence Mall, as possible future newsroom and office sites for hundreds of workers and managers.
That follows the company's sale of the white-towered Inquirer-Daily News building at 400 North Broad Street, its home since the 1920s, to Bart Blatstein’s Tower Investments, best known for converting former Philadelphia factories and office buildings to yuppie apartments, stores and restaurants. A move to 8th and Market is "one of the options we’re looking at,” but discussions at this stage are “not definitive,” Philadelphia Media general counsel Michael Kuritzkes told me. Dow has turned the modern Rohm and Haas headquarters into the headquarters of one of its business groups, but it doesn't need all the space, and it's seeking tenants for the upper floors.
Ron Rubin’s Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, which has been seeking state aid to renovate and redevelop some of its other Market East holdings, including the Gallery, is the lead owner of the 8th and Market property.
UPDATED: If the papers strike a deal with PREIT, their offices would occupy "one or more" of the vacant floors between the retail space on the ground level and state offices on the fourth, fifth and six floors, PREIT Services president Joseph Corardino told me. State workers moved there after leaving the state office building at 1400 Spring Garden St., two doors north of the Inquirer building, after Blatstein agreed to buy it in 2008.
Philadelphia Media should check with the local Chinese community around the block.
They're the group that prevented that area - maybe even that building? - from becoming home to Philadelphia's "other" casino. They claimed that the locals had a known weakness for gambling and that a casino in the neighborhood would be the community's undoing.
So check and see if they're also addicted to buying newspapers - never know about these things.— He Visto Todo- What do you do about parking at 8th & Market?— tomfox
- They could do a lot worse than 8th & Market. They'd be more in the heart of the city, which makes sense for a newspaper to be in.— thegreengrass
- Why do you have to make the comment "yuppie" apartments, stores, and restaurants? Not what I would call impartial journalism.— gslam20
- No state aid...I am sick of state aid for commercial projects like this. What about the other buildings in the area? How do they feel about state-aided competition? How do the other supermarkets in Germantown feel about one new store going up with $3 million in state aid?— Madeline Claire
- "and in New Jersey as a possible new home"....really?
— jimmymack - If anyone needs a new home its the Phila. Police Dept. The roundhouse is literally falling apart! Maybe one the Social Sec. office consolidates and moves the old SS office on Spring Garden would be ideal for the police... tons of parking, etc!— Randjk
Comment removed.- "Parking? What about parking?"
Can you people get over parking? Good grief. It's amazing how car-obsessed this country is.— NickFromGermantown - Comment removed.
- Newspapers can trace their demise directly to the Republicans and the Religious Right, who for years have been screaming at the top of their lungs that newspapers have a liberal bias and that all they need is to read The Drudge Report. Well, click on any link on the Drudge Report and it takes you to a newspaper site! I am sick of the bigoted criminal Republicans destroying women, children, minorities, blue collar union workers, and gays in the name of Big Oil, Wal-Mart, and Halliburton.— eldiablodelsol2009
- Comment removed.
- Yeah, the internet had nothing to do with it. — GroJLart
- Nah Eldia, the demise is self-inflicted. It's a combination of failing to stand up to those right-wing bullies and tell the truth and their inability to effectively strategize the Web.— Mr. Baseball
Most of the young men going through the public school system can not read or write adequately, so much, that the military finds them unfit for recruiting. Newspapers have a great value, but not for a hollowed out generation that can not read them and have no reason to buy them. Since many of these are low income, they also do not have access to the internet due to investment in computer hardware that has to be constantly upgraded and fees for ISP connections. The papers could find a niche for people hungry for info, but do not get on the internet. Certainly sports and politics and food shopping could be a draw for this market that could be built on.
