UPDATE: Belo Moves DFW Printing to Plano Plant

By: Jim Rosenberg Last week, Dallas-based Belo Corp. said it will close its DFW Printing Co. in Arlington, Texas, next month and consolidate that operation's commercial printing at the Plano plant, which prints The Dallas Morning News.

Plano already serves some DFW accounts. A little over a year ago, DFW became a print site for The New York Times.

In a letter notifying DFW customers, Production Vice President William H. May Jr. said the move is being made to gain efficiencies and add resources to remain competitive in the current "uncertain economic environment." He added that in-house mailer Design Mail's location in the Plano plant enables the company to offer "timely, affordable mailing services."

Consolidation will relocate all sheetfed, mini-web and bindery equipment to Plano, but will decommission DFW's two Goss Urbanite presses. May said, however, that the company wil hold onto the Urbanites "for the foreseeable future."

Newer doublewide presses in Plano offer more page and color capacity and better color register and inking control. But May pointed out that whereas the singlewide Urbanite can accommodate multiple web widths, the 48-inch-web-width doublewide web presses ordinarily are more limited in the page sizes they can print.