BJ publisher: We’re not moving

My sources tell me that publisher Mark Cohen, a Cincinnati native, held a meeting with employees and said that the BJ will NOT be moving, as former BJ staffer Abe Zaidan reported in his blog, which was quoted in a BJ Alums article.

Said the source:

“They have looked at some places but found the cost too expensive. The plan is, when and if a buyer is interested, then they will rent from the new owner.”

Once the site of a Music Hall, the Times-Press took over the 44 E. Exchange Street property in 1930.  Scripps-Howard  sold it in 1938 to John S. Knight. McClatchy bought Knight-Ridder, then sold the BJ to Black Press of Canada, whose owner/CEO is David Black.

The reports we get are that the BJ occupies only the third, top floor of the building. Efforts to rent out the first and second floors and the mezzanine apparently have been fruitless.

With a newsroom staff that went from 250 in 1996 to less than 60 today, and a printing press that was sold so that the Canton Repository prints the BJ (since 2013), there just isn’t much need for more than one floor for today’s BJ.

Cohen replaced Andrea Mathewson, the BJ’s first female publisher, in 2013.

To see the earlier article about a possible BJ move from the East Exchange Street building, click on http://bjretirees.blogspot.com/search?q=BJ+moving+within+months%3F