BELLEVUE _ Horvitz Newspapers Inc., owner of the Valley
Record, the Eastside Journal, the South County Journal and several other papers
in King County, announced recently that it would be expanding its
newspaper production facility at the South County Journal in Kent.
The move means that the Bellevue-based Horvitz
Newspapers will be able to print all of its King County newspapers in one
location. The company is planning a 42,000-square-foot addition to its Kent
building and renovating 22,000 square feet of existing office and
warehouse space. Currently, newspapers are printed at plants in both Kent
and Bellevue.
Horvitz Newspapers will also be buying a state-of-the-art
printing press, which will increase efficiency and provide advertisers and
readers with improved color reproduction, along with and ability to print
more full-color pages in each edition. The new press would also expand
the company’s capability to provide commercial printing services to
customers.
“The Eastside and south King County deserve outstanding
community newspapers, and these expansion plans represent our latest
commitment to provide our readers and advertisers with the highest quality and best
customer service possible,” said Peter Horvitz, president of Horvitz
Newspaper and publisher of the Eastside Journal.
“We’ve worked very hard over many years to improve our
newspapers and make them more successful businesses, and this planned
consolidation is another step in the right direction.”
In all, the cost of the building expansion and the printing press is
expected to be more than $18 million. The project will be completed in
three phases over three years. The first phase includes the installation of the
press and expanding the newspaper packaging center, which could be
operational by March 2002.
The consolidation of production facilities may result in the closing
of the Eastside Journal’s printing and packaging plant, located on a
1.6-acre site next to the paper’s main office in Bellevue. The future of the
building and property has not been determined.
Many of the production employees at the Eastside Journal would
have the opportunity to be relocated to the South County Journal. An overall
reduction in production staff is expected when the new facility is fully
operational. Meetings about the project are under way with the Graphic
Communications Union, representing pressroom employees at the Eastside
Journal and the South County Journal, and with the Pacific Northwest
Newspaper Guild, which represents some production and circulation workers at
the Eastside Journal.
Horvitz Newspapers is a family-owned company based in
Bellevue that owns four daily newspapers: the Eastside Journal, the South
County Journal, the Peninsula Daily News in Port Angeles and the Daily Times
in Maryville, Tenn. It also owns several weekly papers in King County,
including the Valley Record, the Mercer Island Reporter, the Northshore
Citizen, the Renton Reporter, the Kent Reporter and the Auburn Reporter.
