Blue Light Special on Newspaper Buildings
Think the proposed sale of the Inquirer building is an isolated case? Think again. These days, the land occupied by America's great newspapers is increasingly being eyed as a cash-generator. See the Wall Street Journal's take on the subject.
posted by Inga Saffron at 9:09 AM
3 Comments:
Brian Tierney says they are not in the real estate business. Hence the need to jettison their vast holdings. Really? When First Union/Wachovia Bank woke up after digesting dozens of banks creating in its wake the 4th largest bank in the US of A, it discovered it had billions tied up in downtown offices and bank branches up and down the Eastern Seaboard. It moved to sell and lease them back, if needed, to a real estate investment trust specializing in picking up bank assets of this kind from the historic bank merger and consolidation of the past 15 years. That whole process made so much sense it make me wonder why I did not think about it. Which leaves us with newspapers, still profitable but about to be swept into the dustbin of history by the internet. I guess if you gut your payroll of editorial writers and replace them with celebrity lawyers/writers who work out of their own desk that management does not have to pay rent for, voila' more profits. And as a bonus gift, a half empty office building that you can sell to the red hot downtown urban comeback real estate boom. The locale of the Inky HQ is strategically placed between a growing Temple U main campus and an already built out center city. It would seem that it would be wise to be patient and let the area's value surge with the completion of the convention center. Look at the profits reaped by Mr. Tishman, a RE veteran, after he bought low from the newspaper people. It would seem Mr. I Am Not in the RE business should retain some guidance from someone that is.
dvJust so.
Refined is a
blackbird reaching
the trace near the
sound of a woodland,
and always, when
a tall steeple- chase
describes an emotion,
feeble and calm
is the delicate song
coming around
like a frightened leaf
in the care of a
darkness: and just so
for me, while the
sun fades away….
Francesco Sinibaldi
Excuse me, co-owner Toll is NOT in the RE business? GIve us a break!
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