Just because you don’t literally “make” the news anymore doesn’t mean you can’t make the news.
“The Miami Herald started going downhill,” said former Herald sportswriter and longtime broadcaster Dan Le Batard recently, “when it was realized the land where its building was located was more valuable than the entire news operation.”
That might sound a little harsh: News organizations are still committing valuable acts of journalism, after all. But as the old saying goes about the value of land, they’re not making any more of it.
Look around the Southeast — and the nation, for that matter — and they pop up like alerts on a police scanner: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s former printing plant will give way to the $5 billion Centennial Yards development. The former home of the Greenville News in Upstate South Carolina has been subsumed by the lively Camperdown development. In Birmingham and Memphis, former newspaper buildings have been transformed into storage. But more often than not, the properties are turning into hot new downtown hubs.
If printing the news is on its way out, then hip repositioning of the routinely high-value, center-city premises that used to produce the daily newspaper is most definitely in. And as with old tobacco and mill buildings, companies are attracted to those places’ recast narratives.
Alabama
Ever since Nick Saban retired as football coach at the University of Alabama, they can’t name things after him fast enough. Sure, Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium is nice. But before that happened this fall, another place in Tuscaloosa — a place that could influence the futures of more than NFL draft picks — was graced with his surname.
The Saban Center soon will rise on the spot previously occupied by The Tuscaloosa News on what was previously called 28th Avenue. But it too has been renamed with Saban’s moniker in the new name: Nick’s Kids Avenue is so named after Nick’s Kids Foundation, an organization established by Saban and his wife Terry in 1998 during their time in Lansing, Michigan, to honor his father Nick Saban, Sr. Its mission is to help nonprofit organizations that support children, family, teacher and student causes. Those causes have included 20 Habitat for Humanity houses, career tech classrooms at the Tuscaloosa County Juvenile Detention Center and the Tuscaloosa Riverwalk Playground, among others.
Now they include the Saban Center, an innovative community partnership that will bring together community, STEM-centered children’s organizations.
Saban Center Director of Development Brandt LaPhish tells me there’s been “lots of confusion” about what the Saban Center will be. So he’s here to clear that up.
“Saban Center is an active learning campus that includes the Tuscaloosa Children’s Theatre, The Children’s Hands-On Museum (which will be reimagined as IGNITE), and the State of Alabama STEM Hub,” he writes. “Here arts, education, discovery and innovation come together to prepare the workforce of the future.”
Partners include the Alabama Power Foundation, Coca-Cola Bottling Company UNITED, Mercedes-Benz, Parker Towing, The University of Alabama and, most recently, Shelton State Community College (SSCC), designated as The Community College of the Fine Arts by the Alabama Legislature. “Furthermore, SSCC’s prominence as the premier training entity for West Alabama’s industrial sectors — automotive, manufacturing, construction, health care and more — positions it uniquely to create relevant programming for exhibits related to STEM and career technologies,” said a June release. “This includes robotics, computer programming and networking, electronics, welding, truck driving, health care, child care and numerous other subjects pertinent to the West Alabama region.”
Demolition of the Tuscaloosa News building is occurring this fall, with an official groundbreaking next spring and an opening kickoff sometime in summer 2027.
A conceptual rendering depicts IGNITE, a STEM discovery center to be located at the Saban Center campus devoted to STEM and the arts in Tuscaloosa.
Rendering courtesy of The Saban Center
The project is supported by around $40 million, $15 million in private funds and $25 million as a result of the Elevate Tuscaloosa tax plan, which has funded parks, transportation and community projects across the city. It’s the second time a Tuscaloosa News building has given way in the name of progress. The paper’s longtime home at Sixth Street and 20th Avenue was demolished in 2007 as part of the city’s Downtown Urban Renewal and Redevelopment Project.
In Mobile, after the Mobile Press-Register, the state’s oldest newspaper, decided to stop printing a paper edition in 2023, its headquarters is being occupied by beer distributor Gulf Distributing. In Montgomery, after nearly two centuries in publication, the Montgomery Advertiser has moved from Molton Street into the hip Kress on Dexter redevelopment on the city’s historic Dexter Avenue. That same address is home to The Eagle Institute, an Air University Innovation Center designed to convene stakeholders to boost innovation within the Air Force.
In Huntsville, the former headquarters of The Huntsville Times near downtown is now occupied by Times Plaza, a mixed-use office and retail development. The paper itself relocated to a bypass in the 1950s before relocating back downtown in 2013.
North Carolina
Even as the former News & Observer building in downtown Raleigh awaits action six years after being sold by McClatchy, the footprint of the Charlotte Observer on South Tryon Street from 1927 to 2016 has given way to tomorrow in the shape of Legacy Union, a 10.2-acre mix of office towers, green space, retail and dining owned by Lincoln Harris.
“The vision for Legacy Union has always been to create a dynamic gateway for Uptown Charlotte, and with three first-class office towers totaling more than 1.5 million square feet of space, that vision is certainly becoming a reality,” said Johno Harris, president of Charlotte-based Lincoln Harris, when the company, in partnership with the real estate business of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, closed on the sale of the 18-story 367,000-sq.-ft. Legacy Union SIX50 building at 650 South Tryon to Highwoods Properties Inc., a company also involved in the redevelopment of the former site of The Tennessean and Nashville Banner newspapers in the hip North Gulch district of Nashville.
“This is the culmination of more than seven years of effort to entitle, develop, lease and sell more than 1.5 million square feet of mixed-use commercial real estate on the former Observer site which has redefined Charlotte’s skyline,” said Chris Nelson, managing director, Goldman Sachs Asset Management. “We’re excited for the next phase of office development at Legacy Union currently underway, and congratulate Highwoods on their acquisition as they expand their footprint in Charlotte.”
That next phase has arrived with the delivery this year of 600 South Tryon, a 300,000-sq.-ft., 24-story building with expansive amenities located at the exact same address as the Charlotte Observer’s longtime home.
South Carolina
The mill-to-mixed-use motif mixes with the newspaper theme in downtown Greenville, South Carolina. The Camperdown Plaza redevelopment sits by the Reedy River at the same location once occupied by Camperdown Mill, a 260-employee cotton thread factory that operated from 1876 to 1956. The site was also home to The Greenville News, whose legacy of 75 years in operation is now honored in the Press Room, a speakeasy-style bar inside the AC Hotel at Camperdown.
The 35,000-sq.-ft. Greenville News building this past summer was sold to a new ownership group and will be managed by The Furman Company Investment Advisory Services. Its main tenant will be Find Great People, the Greenville-based HR and recruiting company that operates around a mission of “gratitude, growth and great people” and maintains other offices in Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee. The company aims to move into the new location by the summer of 2025.
Redevelopment of the former Miami Herald waterfront HQ site owned by Malaysian gambling operator Genting Group has been slow to materialize. In the meantime, the location where the newspaper building was razed in 2015 has been leased to the Art Miami and Context art fairs.
Photo courtesy of Art Miam
“The Greenville News has been a landmark in our community for decades, and we are grateful for the opportunity to move into this cornerstone building,” said John Uprichard, CEO of Find Great People, of the newspaper that was one of the first tenants at Camperdown when it arrived there in 2017. “The Camperdown Plaza has become a vibrant hub, and we are excited about the opportunity to be in the heart of our city. This move will provide an enhanced experience for our clients and employees, as well as future opportunities to positively impact our community,”
Practically next door on Camperdown Way, United Community Bank recently opened its new $65 million, 300-employee HQ overlooking Falls Park and that same Reedy River that once powered mills and today powers tourism and quality of life.
