Report: Marin IJ to move to San Rafael

The IJ has been in Novato since 1981.  IJ file photo by Stuart Lirette.

The Marin Independent Journal appears poised to abandon its Novato home for the last 30 years and move to less expensive digs in San Rafael, reports Patch.com’s Brent Ainsworth, a former IJ editor.

Ainsworth said he has been told by unidentified sources that an announcement is expected “in the coming weeks” because the move is anticipated during the summer. He doesn’t know where in San Rafael the IJ will land.

MediaNews Group, owner of the 23,000-circulation IJ, shut down the paper’s presses last fall and moved the printing to Concord. The shutdown happened after Gannett Co. moved the printing of its Bay Area USA Today edition from the IJ to a contract printer in San Jose, Southwest Offset.

The IJ, which just celebrated its 150th anniversary, once had a staff of 300 people, but now is down to about 100, according to Ainsworth. The shutdown of the pressroom last fall resulted in the layoffs of about two dozen employees, he said.