The John Gottschalk Freedom Center is a newspaper production facility located at 14th Street and Capitol Avenue in

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

. Built for the ''

Omaha World-Herald The ''Omaha World-Herald'' is a daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, the primary newspaper of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area. It was locally owned from its founding in 1885 until 2020, when it was sold to the newspaper ...

'', the building is considered to be one of the most automated and technologically advanced newspaper facilities in the world. The Freedom Center has been labeled a "catalyst" in the redevelopment of Downtown Omaha, along with such other new downtown development as the opening of the Missouri riverfront, the First National Bank Building, the

CHI Health Center Omaha CHI Health Center Omaha is an arena and convention center in the central United States, located in the North Downtown neighborhood of Omaha, Nebraska. Operated by the Metropolitan Entertainment & Convention Authority (MECA), the facility has a ...

and the Gallup University campus. The facility covers four blocks, and houses the new shaftless printing presses, material handling center, assembly equipment, and a parking garage.

Design

The facility was opened in August 2001, and cost almost $125 million to build. It consists of three structures designed by HDR, Inc. They include a five-level, press hall featuring 3 MAN Roland presses from Germany; a paper-storage facility capable of storing 3,000 rolls of newsprint and a 600-stall

parking garage A multistorey car park (Commonwealth English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistorey, parking building, parking structure, parkade (Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck, or indoor parking, is a building designed fo ...

. Large portions of the exterior are glass, allowing downtown traffic to see the storage facility and presses. The storage facility/press hall is connected by a tunnel than runs underneath 13th Street. Most newspaper facilities of this size have been built on greenfield sites. The Omaha World-Herald was dedicated to keeping its newspaper facilities downtown, which required a more vertical structure, and the tunnel. Transfer Vehicle System (TVS) robotic vehicles are used to deliver newsprint to the press. The presses weigh 1,661 U.S. tons and can produce 75,000 newspapers per hour. The John Gottschalk Freedom Center produces four editions of the ''Omaha World-Herald'' daily, in addition to a Sunday edition and daily editions of the ''Daily NonPareil'' for neighboring Southwest Iowa. Construction of the modern facility served as the impetus for redesigning the layout of the actual newspaper.Johnson, R
"Designing for readers: How the Omaha World-Herald’s redesign changed their thinking"
, ''Design Update''. Fall 2002. Retrieved 7/25/08.

References

{{coord, 41.2615122351501, -95.93381290628477, format=dms, display=title, type:landmark_region:US-NE Downtown Omaha, Nebraska Office buildings in Omaha, Nebraska Buildings and structures in Omaha, Nebraska Commercial buildings completed in 2001 2001 establishments in Nebraska