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The daily print newspaper industry decline and the fast growing appetite companies have for IT needs recently converged in Polk County.
It happened in downtown Lakeland, where the Lakeland Ledger recently signed a deal to sublease the third floor of its headquarters, 18,000 square feet, to Publix's IT department. To make way, the newsroom, business office and publisher moved to the second floor, home to the advertising, circulation and prepress departments. Printing and packaging takes place in a separate, attached building.
When the newspaper moved into its current building at 300 W. Lime St. from a now-demolished smaller building next door in 1998, the newsroom was filled with nearly 100 employees.
Staff cuts necessitated by declining advertising and subscriber revenues reduced newsroom staffing to around 45 people.
The Publix lease allows the supermarket giant to move more of its IT staff downtown. It has long housed IT personnel in the former JCPenney building on south Kentucky Avenue. Also, a sizable contingent of IT staff recently moved into the Bank of America building diagonally across the intersection of Lime and Missouri from The Ledger.
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