Philadelphia Inquirer to sell building

Brian Tierney, chief executive officer of Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C., said today that the company would sell the Inquirer Building, which also houses the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com, and downtown property to reduce debt and reinvest in the company's media businesses. The company will present the 18-story building for sale to real estate developers in an offering memorandum mailed nationwide in September. The company also is soliciting in the memorandum ideas for where to put the 950 journalists, ad people, executives, computer technicians, support staff and others who now work in the building, company officials said. The property comprises the 470,000-square-foot building at 400 N. Broad St. and the company's parking garage on Callowhill Street, between 15th and 16th Streets. The total area is 4.2 acres. The company and its broker, Jones Lang LaSalle, declined to say how much they were seeking for the property. The city's Board of Revision of Taxes has placed a value of $16.7 million on the real estate, based on its use as lower-grade office space and parking. The new local owners, which bought the newspapers and Philly.com in 2006 for $515 million, with more than $300 million of the purchase price borrowed, had planned from the beginning to sell the downtown property to raise cash, Tierney said. The company would need 250,000 to 300,000 square feet of space in a new building for the newsrooms, executive offices, advertising and other operations, a company official said.

Click on the headline to read the full story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Blogger Note: Ken Krause notes in a comment on this post that the Inquirer story was written by former BJ business writer Bob Fernandez. D