BOULDER — After 120 years on the corner of 11th and Pearl streets, the Boulder Daily Camera has pulled up stakes and moved to a business park in east Boulder.
The newspaper — downtown’s longest-operating business — opened at the location in 1891 when only a few thousand people lived in the city.
On Monday, it produced its first edition from the new 25,000-square-foot building at 5450 Western Ave.
“I’m sorry to see it leave 11th and Pearl,” said Laurence Paddock, editor of the Camera from 1960 to 1983, succeeding his father and grandfather. “There’s a lot of memories there.”
The Camera’s departure from downtown follows other newspapers across the country that have left city centers to seek out smaller offices that better fit the size of their staffs and budgets.
“I think it’s a small trend,” said Rick Edmonds, a media-business analyst for the Poynter Institute. “As newspapers have gotten so much smaller, their buildings are typically more space than they need.”
Last year, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution made national news when the paper left Atlanta, relocating to the northern suburb of Dunwoody. Several smaller papers across the country — in places such as New Hampshire and Maine — also announced plans in 2010 to give up their longtime homes in the center of the towns they serve.
In 2008, the owners of the Camera and its sister newspaper Colorado Daily announced plans to sell their downtown Boulder buildings. Last summer, Los Angeles-based Karlin Real Estate bought the properties for $9 million.
Camera editor Kevin Kaufman and publisher Al Manzi have been steadfast that the Camera’s move will not affect the paper’s coverage and community involvement.
“It’s not about downtown versus not being downtown,” Manzi said. “The decision to move had everything to do with the reality of business and real estate.”
