Regional Group announced Tuesday it has acquired the Postmedia building currently home to the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Sun.
The 186,000-square-foot Postmedia building at 1101 Baxter Rd. sits adjacent to Highway 417, which the Regional Group press release calls a “path of future growth” with opportunities for development. The building was sold for $21 million in gross proceeds according to financial filings released in January.
Employees of the two local publications will not be moving from their current workplace, according to the release. However, office space inside the building will be consolidated to allow for 25,000-to-35,000 square feet of space, which Regional Group intends to lease.
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Sender Gordon, director of investments and leasing at Regional Group, said in a statement that keeping the building’s current tenants was imperative to the acquisition.
“The Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Sun newspapers are local mainstays, and we were happy to work out a plan that allows them to transition through this change,” Gordon said.
Bernie Myers, senior vice-president of real property for Regional Group, said in the press release that through a long-term lease-back, the company is able to “assist Postmedia secure its current location and allow for flexibility as their space requirements change.”
Postmedia has gone through several rounds of layoffs in recent years, including a 10 per cent payroll cut announced in June 2018. It also shut down six newspapers this year as part of the cuts.
Since 2010, the national media organization has gone from 5,400 employees to fewer than 3,000, CEO Paul Godfrey told BNN Bloomberg in November. The company’s revenue fell to $676.3 million in 2018 compared to $754.3 million in 2017.
