The Belleville News-Democrat has sold for $1.72 million its landmark downtown building at 120 S. Illinois St., where the newspaper has been based for decades.
The buyer is a Missouri LLC named 120 S. Illinois St. LLC. Its registered agent is a real estate lawyer, Benjamin F. Evans of St. Louis, who could not immediately be reached for comment. Additional information about the corporation and its investors was not immediately available. Evans is a solo practitioner who specializes in commercial real estate transactions.
The St. Clair County recorder of deeds office confirmed the sale and price on Monday, and said it was completed on Sept. 20.
Fred Kern first moved the newspaper to its current location in 1899 after a fire destroyed the paper's former home on the northwest quadrant of the public square on Christmas Eve 1898. The Kern family then moved into a house next door and son Robert later bought the white mansion next to it on East Lincoln.
The newspaper has been based at the existing building -- in roughly its current form -- since the mid-1960s, when two buildings were combined into one, along with an addition. Its printing plant had been based on the outskirts of Belleville, but the paper closed the plant last year, shifting printing operations to a McClatchy sister paper, the Kansas City Star.
The downtown Belleville building has housed editorial, advertising, management and other operations.
The McClatchy Co. chain has sold a number of its downtown headquarters in recent years, sometimes leasing back the property, or sometimes moving to a new location. One of the earliest such sales was in 2011, when McClatchy sold the Miami Herald building for $236 million. The company said it was unnecessary and too costly to stay in the city’s center, and it moved to a different location in 2013.
There has been speculation for years that, if the BND headquarters ever sold, it would be a good location for a law firm. The St. Clair County Courthouse is just a few hundred feet away. Belleville City Hall is across the street. The BND building's interior is disjointed -- not likely a good setting for a retail operation.
BND officials, including general manager and editor Jeffry Couch, did not immediately reply to a request for comment Monday. But in a story posted Monday afternoon at bnd.com, Couch said the paper is searching for a new location and expects to move next year.
Former BND publisher Jay Tebbe said the building is symbolic.
”For my entire life and career, the iconic BND building on 159 has been a symbol for local journalism in our community. I have great memories from working in that building, and am naturally sad about this change," Tebbe said.
One former BND staffer, Suzanne Boyle, said it's a sad day. She worked at the building for 34 years -- 21 of them as BND food editor before retiring in 2017.
"My career started and ended in that place," Boyle said.
She added: "When I walked in the door of that building, I had no experience at journalism. When I left 34 years later, I was sad to see how much journalism had changed. The News-Democrat has changed a lot, too. I'm very sad to see that the building has been sold. It will always be a symbol of one of the things I loved most about Belleville."