Presses go into NAC building

A second printing press is scheduled to make its new home at the Newspaper Agency Corp.'s $84 million West Valley press facility within the next two weeks.

The 37-acre facility received its first press earlier this month. By September, three new TKS Color Top 5000 presses from Japan will be housed in the 319,000-square-foot building.

By June 2006, the presses, at 5600 West and 4700 South, will replace existing presses on Regent Street in downtown Salt Lake City to print the Deseret Morning News and the Salt Lake Tribune.

The NAC handles production, distribution and advertising for the Morning News and Tribune. The news and editorial departments of the News and Tribune, which are separate and competitive, will remain in their respective office buildings in downtown Salt Lake City. The Morning News is on 100 South between State and Main streets. The Tribune recently moved to The Gateway.

Alan Rindlisbacher, a spokesman for the Layton Cos., which is managing the project, said the West Valley building's press hall — the center of the production facility — is complete.

"The building has a 30-ton crane that was built into the building with no other purpose than to move the presses into the facility," Rindlisbacher said. "If they have to replace those presses 30 years from now then they could do that."

Rindlisbacher said the NAC's new press building is Layton's second-biggest project under construction in terms of dollars. The Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah ranks as No. 1.

The new presses are 115 feet in length and 64 feet high and will be capable of printing up to 70,000 newspapers per hour, compared to 50,000 papers with the existing presses.

"We're stepping from one century to a new one," Rindlisbacher said. "It's pretty amazing what a difference it's going to make for the organization."

Bob Burns, senior vice president of operations for the NAC, said eight reel stands, which hold paper and feed it into the presses, are in place.

"The presses we have now are 1980-era presses," Burns said. "The new presses will have a great deal more color and operate at a much higher speed. They are computer controlled. Their reproduction will be crisper and sharper.

"It's a technology leap in terms of printing, quality, reliability and speed."

By October, Burns said, the NAC's administrative, circulation, finance, advertising and human resource departments will move to the new building's 70,000 square feet of office space. All production, packaging and distribution will be at the new headquarters by June 2006.

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E-mail: danderton@desnews.com