Capital City Press site sells for $9.9 million

• By CHAD CALDER
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Jul 29, 2009 - Page: 1B

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General Health System expects today to complete a deal to buy 12 acres on Bluebonnet Boulevard from Capital City Press for $9.9 million.

The property, across from the Mall of Louisiana, is the former home of The Advocate’s printing operation, which moved to Reiger Road near Siegen Lane and Interstate 10 a few years ago.

General Health, the parent company of Baton Rouge General Medical Center, has no immediate plans for construction there but is including it in the master development plan for the General’s 130-acre Bluebonnet campus nearby, hospital spokesman Scott Miller said.

“It’s a prime piece of real estate on one of the busiest streets,” he said.

Richard Manship, president and chief executive officer of Capital City Press, which publishes The Advocate, said the General approached the company shortly after it stopped using the Bluebonnet property. When the land was cleared, it made sense to go back to the hospital rather than put the property on the market, Manship said.

“It seemed like a good fit for Baton Rouge,” he said of the site. “I don’t think we need another drugstore or strip mall.”

Manship said the cost was about $750,000 to clear and clean the site and that Capital City Press will use the remainder of the proceeds from the land sale to pay down debt.

He wouldn’t provide details about the debt, but said much of it stems from the new printing facility on Rieger Road, which cost $51 million.

The company’s other recent cost-cutting measures included selling a corporate jet several weeks ago and laying off 49 employees in May, though Manship would not disclose a dollar amount for either.

Manship said Capital City Press is marketing its two downtown properties with George Kurz. One is the site of the former editorial and administrative building at the northwest corner of Lafayette and Main streets and the other is a parking lot diagonally across the intersection.

Manship said the company is no longer considering developing or co-developing the property itself.

“Ideally, we would offer that (bigger parcel) as a package with the other one, but if someone didn’t want it, it wouldn’t be a deal breaker,” he said.

Looking forward, Manship said he thinks the decline in advertising revenue from national retailers, which the company cited as a problem during the layoffs, will begin to improve later this year. However, Manship said he doesn’t expect a return to what was recently considered normal.