Student-housing empire buys BJ

Capstone Development in Birmingham, Alabama bought the 44 E. Exchange Street BJ building from Black Press for less than $3 million.

Capstone will convert the 1929 building into downtown office spaces.

Capstone has developed properties with 200-bed minimums for lodging college students throughout the south and in Ohio. It has 1,897 buildings that bring in $69.6 million in rentals each year.  

Black Press sold the BJ to Gatehouse in 2018 but kept the building and real estate.

The BJ moved last year to the AES Building on South Main Street.

Herbert Hoover was President and the Great Depression was barreling down on America that August when Scripps Howard built the East Exchange structure in 1929 for its Akron Times-Press, which was absorbed by the Beacon Journal in 1938.

McClatchy paid $4.5 billion in 2006 to buy Knight-Ridder’s newspapers but said the BJ would be one of 12 KR papers it would sell off. Black Press bought the BJ from McClatchy that same year.

 To read the BJ article, go to

https://www.beaconjournal.com/news/20200709/developers-to-buy-former-beacon-journal-building-turn-downtown-akron-property-into-offices?fbclid=IwAR3fuBguGwQoTaM4OJDUSTc3XNpwreW8coBERhqewuP8U3aari5JPfI39_M

  

After this article was posted I got this communication from Chasm, aka Charles Montague:

Hi, John

In my nearly 40 years at BJ, I was known for, among other things, for responding to Copy Desk Chief’s Kathy Fraze’s question, Where are we?, meaning where were we in terms of moving copy to composing room, with mh response of “44 East Exchange Street.”

When I took buyout and retired on 10/09/08, I never thought I would not be able to return to 44 E Exchange and did indeed return for many goings-away, including Doug Oplinger’s.

Time moves on and gracious Katie Byard gave me a tour of new BJ offices on South Main. 

Now I see that 44 E Exchange will be torn down.  I am tough guy, but will not be able to watch the house that John S Knight and Ben Maidenburg built come to the ground. 

For me, whatever takes its place, 44 E Exchange will always be the home of one of America’s great newspapers.

Chas Montague 

ABJ 4-20-70 to 10-09-08

John Olesky note:

Announcement said the building would be converted into office buildings. It didn’t say torn down. But it won’t be the same. It is a historic landmark so tearing it down might be tough to get an approval.

 

Gutting the inside and keeping the shell might be the only permitted event. We'll see.

 

But, as Chuck posted, it is a sad day for all BJ folks to see something other than the pressroom running, the wire machines clanging away and friendly faces all around in the newsroom.