Digital First Media today announced it would sell the St. Paul Pioneer Press printing facility and have the newspaper printed by the Star Tribune in Minneapolis starting in early 2014.

Digital First Media today announced it would sell the St. Paul Pioneer Press printing facility and have the newspaper printed by the Star Tribune in Minneapolis starting in early 2014.
"There is an industry-wide effort to sell newspaper production facilities and consolidate production operations in a manner that better suits our needs. We have reached an agreement with the Star Tribune to handle our production needs," said Guy Gilmore, Publisher of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "The Pioneer Press will continue to publish all of our current newspaper products after the production work is moved."


"These changes will not affect the content or delivery of the newspaper, but will improve our color quality and color capacity," said Mr. Gilmore. "We remain fully committed to the communities we serve and will continue to deliver the relevant news and advertising information our customers demand."


"This contract helps us expand our commercial services business, diversifies our revenue, and strengthens our bottom line without compromising the schedules, journalistic integrity, or quality of the Star Tribune," said Mike Klingensmith, publisher and CEO of Star Tribune. "We're also pleased to be preserving more journalistic voices in our market, a principle that we fully support."
The Pioneer Press will begin staging down production in mid-January 2014 with completion by the end of February 2014. With the move of services there will be a workforce reduction of production-related staff.


Media real estate firm Twenty Lake Holdings is actively marketing the 168,000-square-foot printing facility located at 1 Ridder Circle, St. Paul, Minn.