DTH returns to its downtown roots

The Daily Tar Heel is set to move its headquarters back off campus less than a block from where it was born nearly 117 years ago.
The organization’s board of directors approved the move to an office building at 151 E. Rosemary Street during its meeting Nov. 17.

The DTH was born Feb. 23, 1893, in the upstairs storeroom of a house at 201 E. Rosemary St. The move from the old annex of the Student Union building will occur in phases and will be completed by July 1, 2010.

The DTH had been looking to at least double its space for the past two years and had finally exhausted all its on-campus options before approving the move downtown. It will be the eighth home for the paper, which has been in its current location since 1981.
“There’s risk in doing this, but there’s risk in not doing anything,” General Manager Kevin Schwartz said. “We need to move forward.” The paper is continuing to develop a number of digital products and delivery methods that require more students to produce content and find advertising support for them.

“It has simply become impossible to get all the staff we need to fit in the space,” Schwartz said. “More students than ever have an interest in being part of the DTH. We need to do this to give them the experience they deserve, the skills they’ll need in the new digital world and to continue to grow the business side of things.”

With the move, the DTH is betting that the support advertisers have provided its print edition will be sustainable until its new products generate enough revenue to support the demand for its content on multiple digital platforms. It is also gambling that it will be able to continue to recruit and retain student staff who might live on the opposite side of campus. About 200 news and 50 advertising and business staff currently work for the DTH in a 3,101-square-foot space. The new space is 6,439 square feet.

The DTH, of course, is not the first campus newspaper to leave its campus. Others have been able to do the job from farther away. The Red & Black at the University of Georgia paper has been off campus since 1980, and in 2002 it moved farther from the center of downtown, publisher Harry Montevideo said.

“There was some concern, initially, moving away from campus, but that was never realized,” he said.

In addition to where it started, the DTH has called “home” the Campus Y, New West, Alumni Building, Graham Memorial and the original Frank Porter Graham Student Union building prior to the construction of the connected annex where it now resides.

The DTH will likely keep a small office somewhere in the Union. Union officials have not yet decided what will become of the current space, which requires a fire sprinkler retrofit before it could be renovated.

The Daily Tar Heel is owned by DTH Publishing Corp., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit whose mission is to act as a real-world training ground for UNC students in all aspects of newspaper and digital journalism. It celebrates its 20th year of incorporation as a legal entity separate from the University on November 30.