The Birmingham News announced today that its downtown building is on the market along with the Mobile Press-Register headquarters, according to a story by Dawn Kent. The market price for the 110,000 square-foot building and adjacent parking lot was not announced.
According to the story in The Birmingham News, Cindy Martin, president of Alabama Media Group, and Pam Siddall, president of Advance Central Services Alabama, told Kent that the buildings did not fit “the character of the new companies’ missions.”
Kent reported the newspaper is looking for a building that is accessible to the public, high tech and modern. The current building is located on Fourth Avenue North
in downtown Birmingham and was built in 2006.
Both newspapers cut their print editions to three days per week in September 2012 after cutting about 400 jobs in June. The reason announced by the newspaper was to focus on online content, a move that has received mixed reviews from readers and industry experts
.
Martin told Kent that online traffic is up for the newspaper website while circulation has dropped, but remains above expectations. Martin didn’t disclose how much of a drop in circulation the newspaper has seen.