DTH plans to move to Rosemary Street

The Daily Tar Heel is set to move its headquarters off campus to 151 E. Rosemary St. starting next fall.

In order to continue to improve as a news organization and as a business, the DTH must produce new content and hire more advertising staff, General Manager Kevin Schwartz said.

After exhausting all options to expand its space in the Student Union or move elsewhere on campus, the paper’s board of directors approved a move downtown.

With the move, the DTH is betting that its new content and products will generate enough revenue to support the rent, and that the staff will be able to recruit and retain writers who might live on the opposite side of campus.

“There’s risk in doing this, but there’s risk in not doing anything,” Schwartz said. “We need to move forward.”

About 200 news staff and 30 advertising staff currently work for the DTH in a 3,101-square foot space. The move will more than double the office space to 6,439 square feet.

Editor-in-Chief and board member Andrew Dunn said online advertising revenues now make up a small portion of total income.

With a bigger building, the DTH would have office space for staff to produce more online content and promote online products like the Heels Housing site, the Campus Rec Report site and the soon-to-be-released DTH iPhone application, Schwartz said.

There will also be space for a multimedia studio, which would help recruit talented journalists, Dunn said.

“We’re going to be able to drastically increase what we provide,” he said.

The board will enter into a 10-year lease in the next few days, Schwartz said.

Jonathan D. Jones, president of the DTH board of directors, said a primary concern was how the move would affect campus coverage.

Junior Andrew Harrell, assistant University desk editor, said without the convenience of walking through the Union or the Pit to meet student leaders, the staff will have to work to make sure they are still connecting.

“We’ll gain connections with the town but lose them with campus a little bit,” said Harrell, who plans to continue to work for the DTH next year.

Other campus newspapers have been able to do the job from farther away, Schwartz said.

The University of Georgia paper has been off campus since 1980 and in 2002 moved farther from the center of downtown, publisher Harry Montevideo said.

“There was some concern, initially, moving away from the facility, but that was never realized,” he said.

Schwartz said the paper will likely keep a small presence in the Union.

The move will bring the large staff to frequent town businesses.

“Students who are going to get a bite to eat in between classes or who are working late on a story, buying coffee, will be great for downtown merchants,” said Adam Klein, vice president of the Chapel Hill Carrboro Chamber of Commerce.

The Union board hasn’t yet decided what to do with the space the DTH will vacate, Union director Don Luse said.

It will likely be redesigned when the Union is brought up to code, he said.



Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.