The Minnesota Star Tribune is closing its Minneapolis printing facility at the end of the year and shifting print production to Iowa, ending a 158-year-old run of locally printed newspapers.
About 125 employees will be laid off as part of the closure.
The cost-saving measure follows decades of declining print readership, leaving the Heritage plant on N. 1st Street operating at just 18% of full capacity.
A Gannett facility in Des Moines will print the paper seven days a week beginning Dec. 28. Star Tribune leadership says print subscribers will not see a disruption in their service.
“Nothing about this is easy,” said Steve Grove, Star Tribune publisher and CEO. “But we’re not deserting print. We’re just changing how we produce that paper.”
Grove said the move will result in “several millions” in annual savings and will “help us preserve resources, invest in our digital transformation and continue delivering the high-quality journalism Minnesotans count on.”
Newspapers long depended on print advertising to pay for print production costs. As many of those dollars have shifted to digital, and readers increasingly find their news online, printing a newspaper has become unsustainable for many outlets.
Major newspapers like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and New Jersey’s Star-Ledger have opted to quit printing completely, while others have outsourced printing operations to save money.