Free Press to move into Detroit News building p.

By: Mark Fitzgerald

TWO DETROIT NEWSPAPERS, one Detroit newspaper building: That is the latest consolidation wrought by the joint operating agreement.
In 1995, the Detroit Free Press will move down Lafayette Boulevard into the building of its longtime rival, the Detroit News.
Though the newsrooms of the Free Press and the News will share a building, each paper will have separate entrances and different addresses.
Like the Bickersons, neither party in the still-unprofitable three-year-old marriage appeared entirely comfortable with the arrangement.
News editor and publisher Robert H. Giles noted that the Free Press' new address and entrance on Fort Street is now the back door to the News.
In comments to his newsroom staff, Free Press publisher Neal Shine said that leaving the historic Lafayette Boulevard building would be "difficult" and might further erode the distinct identities of the papers.
"I've been in this building since 1950 and spent more time here than at home," Shine told a News reporter.
The 300-person Free Press newsroom staff will likely move into ground-floor space that once housed the News pressroom, said the Detroit Newspaper Agency. DNA is the Gannett Co.-dominated agency which manages the JOA between Gannett's News and Knight-Ridder's Free Press.
The imposing Free Press building ? designed by architect Albert Kahn and opened in 1925 ? will be sold, rented or donated to a non-profit organization, DNA president Frank Vega said.
Moving the Free Press into the News building will cost an initial $4 million to $5 million but will reduce annual expenses by $1.5 million to $2 million, Vega said.
In addition to adding Free Press employees, the renovations will bring changes to the News. The newsroom will be expanded and remodeled, the News said, and its photography, graphics and features departments will join the city desk, business and sports departments on the building's second floor.