The Seattle Occasions is leaving the South Lake Union location the place it has been since 1931, however it’s not going far.
The Occasions is transferring three blocks east to Alley 24, a comparatively new workplace constructing throughout Yale Avenue from REI’s flagship retailer, tentatively within the second quarter of 2026.
On the constructing’s first ground is the famend Espresso Vivace, which is able to hopefully give The Occasions the world’s best-smelling newsroom.
The brand new places of work gained’t have the identical presence as a stately previous constructing etched with “The Seattle Occasions.”
Nevertheless it’s a a lot nicer house for workers. The transfer can be preferable to the destiny of newspapers which have traded longtime houses in metropolis facilities for strip-mall storefronts, distant workplace parks and residential “places of work.”
About half of The Occasions’ 509 staff can be based mostly within the new places of work, although not 5 days per week, in line with Alan Fisco, Occasions president and chief monetary officer.
“We’re thrilled to be transferring to a brand new, contemporary workplace house at Alley 24,” he stated through e mail.
“It’s an funding symbolizing The Seattle Occasions’ long-term dedication to the longer term. That dedication additionally celebrates our roots in South Lake Union, a neighborhood we now have resided in for almost a century.”
Grand headquarters and different properties amassed by newspapers over the past century have been largely bought off within the final twenty years because the business was buffeted by financial and viewers adjustments.
Usually, this was the results of consolidation and Wall Road varieties extracting the remaining worth out of distressed newspaper corporations.
The Occasions stays independently owned by the Blethen household. In 2011, it started selling blocks of its property in South Lake Union to maintain and spend money on its enterprise, together with know-how upgrades.
Its historic, circa 1931 constructing at Fairview Avenue and John Road, and an adjoining car parking zone, have been bought in 2013 to the Canadian developer Onni for $62.5 million.
Onni additionally purchased the headquarters of the Los Angeles Times, in-built 1935, in 2016.
The Los Angeles paper on the time was owned by Tribune Media, which divested its newspapers, saved their flagship buildings after which bought them for a mixed $430 million, together with Chicago’s iconic Tribune Tower.
The Seattle Occasions now occupies a constructing at 1000 Denny Manner, recognized by old-timers as the previous dwelling of the 13 Cash restaurant. The Occasions bought the constructing in 2011 and consolidated staff on a number of flooring that it leased again. It now fills a single ground, with about 41,000 sq. ft.
At Alley 24, The Occasions is leasing 36,000 sq. ft on the fifth ground that’s principally open workplace house however contains places of work and convention rooms.
Alley 24 was developed by the late Paul Allen’s Vulcan actual property firm in partnership with PEMCO Insurance coverage. It integrated a former laundry and included inexpensive housing and places of work of Seattle structure agency NBBJ, which designed the house.
Vulcan bought the workplace constructing a decade in the past to MetLife. Prior tenants have included the late Android software program startup Cyanogen and the Cole & Weber promoting company that was absorbed into bigger corporations.
The Seattle Occasions repeatedly moved north and east because it was based by Alden Blethen in 1896. It began on Second Avenue and Columbia Road and expanded to Second and Union Road.
In 1916, it developed The Occasions Sq. Constructing on Fifth Avenue, kitty-corner from The Westin Seattle. It shortly outgrew that and moved north to what was then a largely residential space nearer to Lake Union in 1931.
In 1992, the corporate opened a big printing plant in Bothell. It was bought in 2020 and manufacturing was moved to its Rotary Offset Press in Kent.
Sure, The Occasions they’re a changin’.
Alaska papers’ Charlie Kirk turmoil: Three Alaska newspapers noticed their editor and most reporters resign Monday after a mud up over their protection of a Charlie Kirk memorial service, the Juneau Impartial reported.
The papers’ company father or mother, Carpenter Media Group, revised the Kirk story after a Republican state lawmaker complained to a regional govt and on Fb that it was biased and invoked a attainable boycott.
That prompted a resignation letter by the editor overseeing the Homer Information, Peninsula Clarion and Juneau Empire, together with three reporters.
“We can’t do our jobs realizing that strain from an elected official can imply our tales are edited with out prior session with us,” they wrote.
The three papers have one remaining native reporter, on the Homer Information, and one working remotely from Washington for the Empire, in line with the Impartial.
The papers are a part of the Everett-based Sound Publishing group that Carpenter acquired final 12 months. Regional managers declined to debate the state of affairs with me earlier than my deadline.
The state of affairs raises complicated questions on bias, story remedy, independence and the road between authorities officers requesting adjustments or threatening the press.
What’s crystal clear is that issues are inevitable when distant companies run native papers on a shoestring with few if any native editors, a lot much less reporters, and apparently inconsistent protocols for dealing with complaints and revisions. The answer is for America to assist a extra sturdy, native press system.
