Plants Blooming in Springtime

By: Jim Rosenberg Production-plant projects of all sizes came to completion this spring, including a $30-million facility in Springfield, Mass., the replacement of a 30-year-old press in Greenwood, S.C., and the May 12 live-production start-up at a new plant outside Terre Haute, Ind.

Tomorrow's copies of The Tribune-Star will roll off a 16-unit Goss Urbanite imported from another Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. site where "it was more than what they needed," said Stiles Gaffney, production director in Terre Haute. Upgraded with spray-bar dampening and computer-controlled inking, the two-around Urbanite replaces a 24-year-old, 10-unit Urbanite "in dire need of a rebuild," Gaffney said.

In a just-completed 25,000-square-foot plant, the larger, upgraded press sends copies to a 12-into-2 GMA SLS1000 inserter. Like the press, the inserter is a larger replacement for the same model, suggesting satisfaction with years of service. "I've been here 11 years; it's never failed," Gaffney said of the older, 8-into-1 SLS1000. Bought in 1989, it will be rebuilt and used elsewhere.

Until today, papers were printed downtown, where plates from a recently installed alfaQuest Technologies ultraviolet platesetter were tested for conversion to computer-to-plate output at the new plant. In October, the 29,979-circulation Tribune-Star broke ground about 4 1/2 miles away, where the precast concrete structure was completed in March. Gaffney said that limited commercial printing may expand after the plant is running smoothly.

Keeping its pressroom in Greenwood, The Index-Journal has begun the second of two installation phases that allow uninterrupted production as it replaces a 30-year-old seven-unit Harris 845 with a 14-unit Goss Community.

Already installed are two four-high stacks and a mono unit. "Next, we're going to start tearing out the rest of the old press," said Ronnie Brown. The Index-Journal's press manager added that the Community will be in full production the middle of next month. By replacing seven two-around units with 14 one-around units, "basically, we have the same, as far as page capacity," Brown said. "We never used the full capacity of it anyway, and we wanted the color and the versatility" provided by more one-around units.

In addition to the 14,384-circulation Index-Journal, the Community will print The Star & Beacon weekly, owned by a subsidiary and serving nearby Ninety Six and other Greenwood County towns, a shopper, and occasional special tab sections and publications.

Owner and Publisher Judith M. Burns said the investment of more than a million dollars would help meet color requirements that didn't exist when her father, R. Frank Mundy, acquired the paper and installed the Harris press in 1972. A much larger project at a much larger paper was begun at the end of 2001, when Advance Publications' 91,713-circulation Union-News and Sunday Republican razed part of its Springfield plant and later poured a foundation and press pad for a modern, 32,180-square-foot facility able to house a taller press and larger storage and packaging areas.

General Manager Brian J. Long refused to comment on any aspect of the project, which was variously reported to have cost $20 million (Associated Press) and $30 million (Republican). Its centerpiece is a fast, one-around, doublewide MAN Roland Regioman press. The five eight-couple towers, able to put offset color on most pages, replaced a Wood-Hoe press installed in 1969 and later converted to direct lithography. Since last month, the new press has printed all sections of the paper, which also relies on GMA inserters and buffering.

In February, the plant became another early adopter of ultraviolet platesetting, in this case from basysPrint.

Now with shorter, narrower pages and renamed The Republican last month, the paper traces its beginning to 1824, when state Republican Party co-founder Samuel Bowles poled a barge carrying his family and a hand-lever press (still at the paper) 30 miles upriver from Hartford, Conn.