McClatchy to end lease for New Ventures Lab, relocate workspace within Sacramento
McClatchy’s New Ventures Lab, a workspace in downtown Sacramento dedicated to experimental storytelling innovations including augmented reality journalism, plans to relocate by the end of April.
As part of proceedings in filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month to restructure debt, The McClatchy Co. and its debtors on Tuesday filed a motion to terminate the company’s lease for the space at 401 I St. in the city-owned Sacramento Valley Station at the Railyards.
Jeanne Segal, McClatchy’s director of communications, said Wednesday that the New Ventures Lab will relocate to midtown in the coming weeks and continue to operate.
“We are relocating NVL to McClatchy’s headquarters and The Sacramento Bee building to consolidate our real estate footprint and operate smarter and more efficiently,” Segal said.
The lease was entered into in August 2017 and was set to expire in November 2025. If approved, the motion would have the lease instead expiring no later than April 30 of this year.
New Ventures Lab operations will relocate to 2100 Q St. by that date, Segal said.
“As a part of its preparation for the (Chapter 11 bankruptcy) filing, McClatchy conducted a comprehensive review of its leases to determine which ongoing leases it will carry forward and which it will terminate in order to operate efficiently and position its business for success in the future,” Segal said.
Tuesday’s court filing indicated that rejection of the lease would save approximately $1.5 million.
The 10,000-square-foot New Ventures Lab was also used to host a number of community events in 2019, including the “Camp Fire: One Year Later” and California Priorities Summit events put on by The Sacramento Bee in November, as well as Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s tech council meetings.
A video produced by New Ventures Lab visual journalist Sohail Al-Jamea and Fresno Bee photographer John Walker, titled “‘I felt like a dog.’ On suicide watch for days in a California jail,” published as part of McClatchy and ProPublica’s “Overcorrection” investigative series last year, won a silver medal from the Society for News Design for its use of animation. The New Ventures Lab created the video using motion capture technology.
The New Ventures Lab team also created an app called Actual Reality, which was recognized by the Online Journalism Association in 2019 with an award for excellence and innovation in digital storytelling.
McClatchy on Feb. 13 filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, outlining a plan that would eliminate about 60 percent of the company’s debt. The plan would shift majority ownership of McClatchy to hedge fund Chatham Asset Management, ending 163 years of family control by the McClatchy family.
McClatchy executives said the filing would have no immediate impact on its 30 newsrooms across 14 states, including The Bee, The Kansas City Star, the Miami Herald and The Charlotte Observer.
Additionally, there are no filings pertaining to The Bee’s longtime offices, which are now owned by an affiliate of Shopoff Realty Investments, based in Irvine, California.
The motion to reject the New Ventures Lab lease will be heard in bankruptcy court March 25.
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 10:21 AM.
