Johnson Publishing Co., publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines, is selling its Michigan Avenue headquarters building to Columbia College Chicago, the company and the college announced today.
Johnson uses only about 40 percent of the 820 S. Michigan Ave. building and a plan to move its headquarters has been part of the company's strategy to reduce costs while revamping its publishing and cosmetics business, company Chairman Linda Johnson Rice said a in a press release.
Johnson boasts Ebony and Jet have a combined readership of more than 17 million, but the company has been hit by declines in ad revenues that have devastated many magazine publishers, including a 38-percent drop in ad revenue last year for Ebony. A creditor had filed liens against the property, but no mention of that situation was made in releases from Johnson and Columbia today.
Johnson will remain at the 1972 building for the next 18 months under a lease with Columbia, until it finds a new location for its headquarters. When completed, the building was touted as the first in downtown Chicago designed by an African-American since Jean Baptiste Point DuSable's trading post, built in the late 18th Century.
Columbia had been searching for a replacement for its current library, 624 S. Michigan Ave. Last year, Columbia discovered the books in that building exceeded its maximum weight capacity, according to a letter from Columbia President Warrick Carter posted on the college's Web site. The 11-story, 110,000-square-foot Johnson building will more than handle the library's needs.
"When we learned of Columbia's interest in preserving the building and using it to expand opportunities for young people to study visual, performing, media and communications arts, we knew this was an opportunity that we should pursue," said Rice, daughter of Johnson founder John H. Johnson.
The terms of the sale, which also includes a nearby parking garage, were not disclosed, but Warrick said in his letter that the college used reserve funds for the purchase, and will save money by cancelling leases for functions that will relocate to the building.
-- Staff report
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