Salt Lake Papers Plan New Production Plant

By: Jim Rosenberg If all goes according to plan, in two years Newspaper Agency Corp. will relocate as many as 750 people to a new headquarters and production plant on 37 acres in West Valley City, Utah, about 10 miles south of its current Salt Lake City location. When it does, the jointly operated but editorially competitive Deseret Morning News and The Salt Lake Tribune will retain their downtown newsrooms, which employ approximately 350 people.

The agency ordered another plate exposure unit and signed a letter of intent to buy a press, but General Manager Fred Temby said packaging equipment requests for proposals (RFPs) probably won't go out before next month.

Architectural and engineering services supplier Dario Designs Inc. completed a master plan and started schematics for the facility's 350,000 square feet, more than a quarter of which will be devoted to office space. Economical and durable precast concrete will permit a design that works with the landscape, according to President Dario D. D. DiMare, who also is handling RFPs.

"Essentially we are getting the property free," Temby said. With tax abatements and "up to a half-million dollars in fee waivers ... that makes the whole package from the city worth about 10.5 million dollars." Of the project's estimated $80 million cost, the press accounts for between $25 million and $50 million, NAC President Joe Zerbey told the Tribune.
As it expected, NAC stayed with basysPrint for ultraviolet computer-to-plate (CTP) output of higher-sensitivity conventional litho plates (E&P, May 19). The first UV Setter images 70% of plates; delivery of a second machine is awaited. Full CTP was needed "to convert the Deseret News to the Deseret Morning News" and meet the production timetable, Temby said. The News went to morning delivery in early June.

Already the largest U.S. newspaper operation employing UV CTP, a contract with TKS (USA) Inc. will make NAC the largest printing on a 4-by-1 (four-page-wide, one-plate-around) press. The JOA's average weekday circulation is 211,271 copies. It also will mark TKS's return to replacement sales in the U.S., where for 13 years its business has consisted of additions and upgrades.

Now running a Goss Metro and two lines of Goss Headliner Offset, as well as a Goss Urbanite for USA Today and other publications, NAC invited all makers of 4-by-1 presses to bid. TKS is the latest to build a 4-by-1 -- unsuited to its Japanese home market's wide pages, which require longer cylinders that, with a small, one-around diameter, tend to bow.

At Nexpo, where TKS ran part of a tower bound for Utah (E&P, June 23), National Sales Manager Mike Shafer said the ColorTop 5000UD uses same-size plate and blanket cylinders, like Heidelberg's Mainstream, and wrap-around blankets, like MAN Roland's Regioman. Plans call for erecting three inline shaftless presses and 24 core-driven reelstands on a concrete table top in a 400-foot-long, 50-foot-wide, 80-foot-tall press hall. Each press consists of a 4/1 tower, mono unit, 4/4 tower, 2:5:5 jaw folder, 4/1, mono, 4/4, and 4/1 - 111 open-fountain printing couples in all. Mono units are expandable to 4/4, and each four-color tower can grow to 5/5. "They asked for that being built into it," said Shafer, adding that the press line allows for future addition of two towers on each end, the right folder will be framed and drilled to add quarterfolding, and a 2:3:3 folding couple can be added to the middle folder.

"We're also looking at side-fed presses," said architect DiMare, who is working with consultant Chuck Blevins on press RFPs. Erected 90? from typical inline orientation, all print positions would be fed directly from same-level reelstands, with angle bars used only above to direct webs to folders. Collating and high-bay automatic storage and retrieval for both newsprint and inserts are under consideration, DiMare added.

Newprint roll diameters will grow from 45 and 48 inches to 50 inches, while web widths and cutoffs will shrink to 50 and 21 inches, respectively. T-NPC press controls will have a training simulator. Ancillary systems will include automatic webbing, blanket washing, registration, and roll loading.

Roll transport and butt roll removal "is still up for bid, but we're going to go after that," said Shafer. Citing the product line of TKS sister company KKS, he said possibilities range from a low-profile roll dollies and cores carts to battery-powered (and manually movable) dollies able to do both jobs.

"We plan on doing two runs per edition most days," said Temby. Combining efficiencies in platemaking, owing to CTP and the lower volumes required by a 4-by-1 press, with pressroom and reelroom automation, he foresees "significant economies in personnel." And with changes to equipment and roll dimensions, Temby continued, "we think printed waste is going to be reduced significantly." Now at 5%-6%, he hopes to see it sink to 3%.