OFFICIAL - KC Star Printing Press

[KCPowercat]

Bumping this thread for some memories of what a horrible idea this press building that is now comes to light even more with the new stadium plan. If this wasn't built this area wouldn't have been nearly as appetizing as it ended up being.

[Sani]

Maybe the Press Pavilion wasn't a terrible investment after all. Maybe Knight Ridder were truly focused on turning downtown around and wanted to make a $199 million investment into a potential ballpark site 20 years later.

[TheLastGentleman]

Why did iowa get the job of printing papers from now on? Is the facility up there way better than the Star pavilion was? That has always confused me

[taxi]

Maybe they can take all that copper and make Royals souvenir pennies for all the businesses that will be displaced.

[Sani]

Why did iowa get the job of printing papers from now on? Is the facility up there way better than the Star pavilion was? That has always confused me

The Des Moines Register got new presses in 2000. Gannett built their new press facility on the outskirts of Des Moines. They only paid $52.2 million for theirs, but they didn't use it to revitalize downtown, so...

The Omaha World-Herald also got a fancy new downtown press building in 2001 for $125 million. I checked the driving distance between both the Omaha and Des Moines plants and 1729 Grand, the old KC Star building, and they're both around 183 miles away.

My guess is Gannett put in the lowest bid to print the Star. The presses in Omaha can print 75,000 papers per hour, and I'm sure the ones in Des Moines are similarly capable. The Des Moines Register's daily circulation in 1997 was about 165,000 papers, with 250,000 on Sundays. Their Sunday circulation was less than 40,000 by 2022. The presses stand idle most of the time, and I'm sure any print job is welcome, even if it's a newspaper in a different state that's hundreds of miles away.

[DaveKCMO]

Worth noting that they demolished/displaced for the thing too, and vacated a public street to create a superblock. Now we're going to double down on all of that because fanboys and fake math.

[ericwyner]

why did they invest that much when the decline of print media was obvious 20 years ago?

[Cratedigger]

why did they invest the much when the decline of print media was obvious 20 years ago?

Obviously a bad decision in hindsight.



But it’s interesting reading this thread and the opinion of the project in 2004. Overwhelmingly positive and no mention of changing consumer preferences for consuming news as a risk.

The early 2000s seem to be right in the middle of the paradigm shift

[grovester]

The purchase by McClatchey in 2006 was just as much a factor.

Can't help but think quality local ownership could have navigated the challenges better.

[KCPowercat]

The purchase by McClatchey in 2006 was just as much a factor.

Can't help but think quality local ownership could have navigated the challenges better.

For sure.

[FangKC]

They spent too much money on it. If a new press was needed, they should have just built a big warehouse out on the edges of the Metro near an Interstate highway that was simple and bland. Then when the printing was moved out of town, they could have sold the warehouse to someone needing a warehouse and probably ended up making some money off the building instead of losing.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

Could the same argument be made about baseball? I know the rule changes last year caused a slight bump in viewership and attendance but the long-term trend has been negative. Younger sports fans seem to prefer basketball and soccer. Baseball is an old man sport. Are we going to look at replacing a newspaper printing press with a baseball stadium in the same way in 20 years?

[DaveKCMO]

Could the same argument be made about baseball? I know the rule changes last year caused a slight bump in viewership and attendance but the long-term trend has been negative. Younger sports fans seem to prefer basketball and soccer. Baseball is an old man sport. Are we going to look at replacing a newspaper printing press with a baseball stadium in the same way in 20 years?

Yes, another purpose-built taxpayer-supported carcass that will need rescuing in 20-40 years.

[Anthony_Hugo98]

Could the same argument be made about baseball? I know the rule changes last year caused a slight bump in viewership and attendance but the long-term trend has been negative. Younger sports fans seem to prefer basketball and soccer. Baseball is an old man sport. Are we going to look at replacing a newspaper printing press with a baseball stadium in the same way in 20 years?

I mean, annual attendance, even for the Royals is still almost 1.3 million. In one of their worst years ever. That’s over twice what Chiefs attendance is. This is before you include the increase that a downtown stadium would bring, which roughly equates to ~5,000 more per game.

[Chris Stritzel]

Could the same argument be made about baseball? I know the rule changes last year caused a slight bump in viewership and attendance but the long-term trend has been negative. Younger sports fans seem to prefer basketball and soccer. Baseball is an old man sport. Are we going to look at replacing a newspaper printing press with a baseball stadium in the same way in 20 years?

Yes, another purpose-built taxpayer-supported carcass that will need rescuing in 20-40 years.

We get it. You hate it. Just say you're voting "no" already because it's pretty clear that's what you're going to do.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

I mean, annual attendance, even for the Royals is still almost 1.3 million. In one of their worst years ever. That’s over twice what Chiefs attendance is. This is before you include the increase that a downtown stadium would bring, which roughly equates to ~5,000 more per game.

Obviously it makes no sense to compare season attendance of an 81-game schedule to an 8-game schedule.

But, pointing to the Royals attendance just demonstrates the point. Their attendance was 2 million+ almost every year from 1978-1991. The strike impacted things for a few years and attendance recovered back to 1.5 million+ for almost every year between 1997-2017, only reaching 2 million for the World Series and a couple post-WS years and it hasn't been back above 1.5 million since (TBF, COVID, but the point remains, the trend has been going down for decades).

Obviously, that doesn't mean baseball can't stabilize or make a recovery but just throwing it out there. If you were to invest in a sport right now, it seems like baseball would be at the bottom of the list.

[Cratedigger]

Ok - but that time period of decline was also accompanied by one of the worst 20 year performance run by any team in any sport.

If anything the WS years demonstrate that if you put a good product on the field, KC will support it

[DaveKCMO]

We get it. You hate it. Just say you're voting "no" already because it's pretty clear that's what you're going to do.

I'm voting no, tomorrow probably. First in line. I have no problem avoiding the sportsball circlejerk.

[Chris Stritzel]

We get it. You hate it. Just say you're voting "no" already because it's pretty clear that's what you're going to do.

I'm voting no, tomorrow probably. First in line. I have no problem avoiding the sportsball circlejerk.

All I’m saying is consistency to an argument for a better neighborhood matters and I feel you should get more questions answered, but I digress. I’d wager that the buildings at 1818-22 Main would be perfect for at least two of the businesses affected by the stadium, but instead Copaken is going to demolish two perfectly good buildings.

[grovester]

We get it. You hate it. Just say you're voting "no" already because it's pretty clear that's what you're going to do.

I'm voting no, tomorrow probably. First in line. I have no problem avoiding the sportsball circlejerk.

All I’m saying is consistency to an argument for a better neighborhood matters and I feel you should get more questions answered, but I digress. I’d wager that the buildings at 1818-22 Main would be perfect for at least two of the businesses affected by the stadium, but instead Copaken is going to demolish two perfectly good buildings.

You shouldn't complicate this. Go to the East Village, all problems solved!