The Los Angeles Times has announced that it’s shuttering its sprawling 26-acres Chatsworth newspaper-printing facility. The move will result in 110 local job cuts. In a prepared statement, the Times, said it hopes to cut as many jobs as possible through voluntary separation packages. “We deeply regret the impact this consolidation will have on employees, but the reality is that The Times has invested $500 million to modernize and build new facilities and expand color capacity since the Chatsworth plant became operation in 1983,” Mark H. Kurtich, the Times’ senior vice president of operations said in a prepared statement. Consolidation in the newspaper’s production facilities is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2006, after which time the company will begin to sell the 250,000 square foot facility. Shares of Tribune Co., (the owner of the Times) which have traded between $30.64 and $43.41 over the past year, lost two cents in after-hours trading after closing down 53 cents at $30.86 on the New York Stock Exchange.
