The Columbian, reporting on itself, says it's moving out of its swanky new building back into its old downtown location:
The move, according to Columbian Publisher Scott Campbell, is out of the need to generate more revenue from a new six-story building constructed by Campbell and his wife, Jody, which opened south of Esther Short Park in January. The options, Campbell said, are to either lease all of the 118,000-square-foot $30 million structure or to sell it. At present, Columbian newsroom, advertising and circulation operations occupy four of the six floors in the building at 415 W. Sixth St.
But that's not the big news as far as I'm concerned:
In order to make the difficult financial transition, Campbell said the company is trying to negotiate a new loan with its lender or will seek temporary Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors. Chapter 11 gives a business time to reorganize and return to financial health.
Commenters here have often cited the new building as a source of trouble for the paper; looks like they might be right.
It was a bad decision to build such a big new building in a such a small downtown area, where the success of developments have been mixed at best. Especially with newspaper circulation in decline.
With that said, I hope that The Columbian can get their act together, because they are about the only credible news source whose primary audience is Clark County & Southwest Washington. Because of the fact that Vancouver has no radio station or TV station to call their own, it would be a shame to lose this locally-owned paper.