By The River

Patriot-News publisher John Kirkpatrick made public today what the staff has been expecting for two years, that the newspaper is leaving the city of Harrisburg for an office building near its printing plant in Hampden Twp.

Why are they leaving? A primary reason is that their current building at 812 Market Street is in bad shape. Built in 1953, and added to over the years, it is a heating and cooling nightmare that is perpetually in danger from flooding by nearby Paxton Creek. The worst incidence of that was in the Agnes Flood in 1972, when the entire first floor and all of the printing presses were flooded. One employee drowned during the evacuation, and the old presses never ran quite right afterward. Heating and cooling inside the building could fluctuate wildly, and the HVAC crew was there more than the copier technicians.

At the beginning of the decade, the paper acquired land near Interstate 81 in Hampden Twp. and built a new building for new printing presses that enabled it to print the spectacular color that is its hallmark today. At the time, I wondered if the printing plant was the 21st century equivalent of the last and best buggy factory in the early 20th century, about to be displaced by the automobile (Internet). So far, that hasn't happened, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the paper went all on-line in 2-3 years.

The other reason for the move, as any staff member can tell you, is that the paper sees the suburbs as its future. A couple of years ago, the paper categorized area communities as Tier 1 or Tier 2. Tier 1 communities, which included high-growth suburbs like East Pennsboro Twp. and Hampden Twp., were supposed to get beefed up coverage at the expense of the city of Harrisburg and some other places. The problem with that scenario is that the big news tends to happen in Harrisburg and the Capitol, not in Enola.

When management first began discussing the move 2-3 years ago (dates blur), the plan was to move to either the cavernous former PHICO building in Silver Spring Twp. or to a new building that was to be erected on the site of the Arches Restaurant in Susquehanna Twp. They looked at and rejected the Ghost Building on Cameron Street. The PHICO site would have been a disaster, too far from downtown to make it easy for newsmakers to come out for editorial board meetings, and too far from downtown over traffic-choked roads for reporters to get down there very easily to cover breaking stories in the city, after they find a place to park. Heck, it's almost in Carlisle. But if the state's capital city is no longer your number one priority, maybe it wouldn't have mattered.

What will happen to the old building at 812 Market Street? I'm quite sure demolition is in its future. Trust me, no one would want to buy it as an office building. The story has been that Harrisburg University wants the Post Office site across the street for expansion, and that the Postal Service is amenable, but wants part of the Patriot-News tract for a branch station. That will still leave a lot of ground unused. That area will always be flood-prone. Maybe it would be better as a nicely landscaped city park.

Heck, call it Patriot-News Park in honor of all the men and women who spent their lives there reporting the important news of the city and its suburbs. The ones who stayed during the TMI accident, who went out in boats during Agnes and walked to work during the Blizzard of '96, the ones who covered state Treasurer Budd Dwyer's final press conference in 1986 and staggered back to the paper in shock after Dwyer pulled out a gun and blew his brains out. They will be missed.