Baltimore's Sun Park Absorbs Subsidiary's Printing

Tribune Company's Baltimore Sun Media Group announced that it will move all production from its Homestead Publishing Co. subsidiary's plant in Bel Air to the Sun Park plant, 30 miles away, in Baltimore — a consolidation that will cost approximately 50 production and transportation jobs, according to the company.

Press capacity was doubled in 2000 at the Homestead Plant, which had earlier printed copies of the Los Angeles Times and New York's Daily News (now printed at Sun Park) for regional distribution.

Some Sun Park job openings will be available for Bel Air employees. Those affected were given 60 days' notice and will continue to work or be paid and will receive current benefits. Severance will be paid and re-employment support offered.

Reporters and advertising sales representatives will remain in Bel Air.

The change is expected to be complete in 60 days, when, for the first time since 1856, a newspaper will not be printed in the town of Bel Air, according to The Aegis, Homestead's twice-weekly covering Harford County.

Following an industrywide trend, the closing/consolidation is the area's latest in recent years, following newspaper plant closures in Elkton and Riverside, and, south of Baltimore, The Washington Post's sale of its College Park plant earlier this year.