GREENFIELD NEWS MELBOURNE SITE READY BY 2021

News Corp is moving ahead with ambitious plans for a new greenfield Melbourne print site, with a tender out for construction and developers currently being briefed on the project, according to Peter Coleman's newspaper industry website GXpress.

The company has already offloaded its monster Westgate Park complex for $55m in a sale and leaseback deal, and according to Coleman, has just told staff the new greenfield site will be up and running in two years time.

Coleman says the new News plant will be kitted out with a combination of new and pre-loved, although “lightly used”, plant and equipment, which will be drawn from various locations. These include the now closed Fairfax site at Ormiston and the news site in Chullora. News is also bringing in mailroom equipment from The Guardian in the UK.

The Goss Unilever from Ormiston and a manroland Geoman from Chullora will come to the new centre. Former rivals Goss and manroland are now part of the same company, and effectively the only web press manufacturer. KBA in Germany, Komori, Mitsubishi and TDK in Japan all manufacture web presses, but have made little impact in Australia and New Zealand.

Coleman says the press configuration will deliver increased colour capacity for News titles Herald-Sun, The Australian, Geelong Advertiser, Weekly Times, and community titles including the Leader.

The new site will likely be the biggest new print centre to be built in Victoria since the Fairfax Tullamarine plant opened with much fanfare in 2003, only to be closed and sold off 15 years later as Fairfax recalibrated its newspaper printing, first moving metro titles to regional plants, then sharing on News presses. The spectacular Tullamarine building is now a car showroom.