NY workers to stay in South Brunswick.
By: Melissa Morgan
About 250 Dow Jones and Company employees temporarily relocated from New York to South Brunswick following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will be permanently transferred to the Route 1 facility.
The employees, who had worked in the World Financial Center across the street from the World Trade Center, were forced to relocate to the South Brunswick facility when their office became unsafe. The employees have been working at the Bernard Kilgore Center since the attacks.
Dow Jones publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and several other periodicals and offers several Web-based information services.
Steve Goldstein, vice president of corporate communications for Dow Jones, said the copy desk of The Wall Street Journal and the overseas copy desk of the international editions of the Journal will move to South Brunswick, and the company will build a new state-of-the-art newsroom on the third floor of building five, its newest building, to accommodate the new employees.
Many of the divisions of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial department, including The Wall Street Journal Sunday, The Wall Street Journal Special Reports, The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly Edition, The Wall Street Journal Radio News and the news department’s library, pagination and monitor desks will also share the new newsroom.
Certain Dow Jones corporate departments, including significant parts of the Information Technology, Human Resources, General Services, Legal and Corporate Communications, also will move to South Brunswick.
The news and editorial headquarters of both The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s, as well as the corporate headquarters of Dow Jones will return to the WFC as soon as the building becomes available for occupancy.
The company, in an internal memo, told its employees Tuesday about the permanent transfer.
"The South Brunswick facility has idle space and we’ve done a great deal of cost saving," Mr. Goldstein said. "The whole third floor is not really utilized. We have the capabilities because the space is already there. We are just putting it to use."
Mr. Goldstein said that relocating many departments to the New Jersey office building has great financial benefits for the company. Because Dow Jones already owned the facility, it made sense to choose South Brunswick for the relocation. It will now lease less space in the World Financial Center. He said the South Brunswick facility also offers large and attractive office space.
The New York employees being relocated will have until Feb. 1 to decide whether to make the move. Mr. Goldstein said that he hopes all employees will choose to do so, and the company will offer special bonuses to those who do and will pay temporary commuting and housing expenses until the employees can find permanent housing in the South Brunswick area.
The bonuses and other expenses will not affect the existing 1,850 South Brunswick employees. Mr. Goldstein said the company will generate money as a result of the move.
"The only impact that the current employees will experience is that they will see 250 more people every day," he said. "And they have been seeing that since Sept. 11."
Overall, Mr. Goldstein said that he believes the addition of the new employees will benefit South Brunswick.
"In the end, it will be good for the economy of South Brunswick and the surrounding area," he said. "More homes will be built and more tax money will become available. It will really build up the area."

