Six large manroland presslines will be displaced along with the jobs of 115 staff, when Gannett shuts the Sterling Heights, Detroit print site it sold in 2023.

Gannett – which has Media News Group as a shareholder – will close the sprawling site in August, relocating production of the News, Free Press and other publications to sites in Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee and Illinois.

A spokesperson said the strategic decision was made to ensure the future of local journalism. “We deeply appreciate the many years of service our valued colleagues have dedicated to our Detroit facility and the local community,” she said.

Daily print and online editions will continue, and the publisher “does not expect any impact on our readers” from the decision.

The six manroland Geoman 75 presslines also print editions of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Toledo Blade and 27 smaller papers.

Opened in 1971, the 44,600m2 facility became “one of the most technologically advanced printing facilities in the world” in 2005, when the presses were installed, each capable of printing 75,000 newspapers an hour, each of 80 pages and seven sections, half of them in full colour. The Detroit News had a circulation of 164,000 in 2014, and the Free Press 244,000, but publication has since been cut to tri-weekly.