Under a deal announced Wednesday, the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune will begin printing the St. Paul Pioneer Press early next year. The Pioneer Press will close its St. Paul printing facility and lay off the plant’s nearly 170 full-time and part-time employees.

“These changes will not affect the content or delivery of the newspaper but will improve our color quality and color capacity,” Pioneer Press Publisher Guy Gilmore said. “We remain fully committed to the communities we serve and will continue to deliver the relevant news and advertising information our customers demand.”

Gilmore said that consolidating printing operations among papers in close geographic proximity is a national trend; he said it does not represent the first step in a merger of the Pioneer Press and Star Tribune, the Twin Cities’ two dominant newspapers.

“This is a very common type of arrangement that has not led to a merging of two papers in any instance I can think of,” Gilmore said.

Star Tribune Publisher Michael Klingensmith said in an email to his employees that the company had been looking for opportunities to expand its commercial printing business.

“We have the capacity to take on this additional work without compromising the schedules or the quality of our work for the Star Tribune,” Klingensmith’s statement said.

The transition will begin in mid-January 2014 and is expected to take more than a month. Once complete, St. Paul’s newspaper of record will be routinely printed outside the city for the first time in 165 years. The Pioneer Press traces its history to the Minnesota Pioneer, the state’s first newspaper, which was founded in 1849 in St. Paul.

Although Gilmore wouldn’t provide specifics, he said the resulting cost savings for the Pioneer Press will be significant. The roughly 170 employees to be laid off constitute about 120 full-time equivalents.

The terms of the five-year contract were not disclosed, but Gilmore said it does include a three-year extension option. If needed, he indicated, the paper has other options.

“That question may come into play five years down the road,” Gilmore said. “But I think it’s fair to say there are other ways to print the Pioneer Press than just with the Star Tribune.”

Nearly all of the employees affected by the layoffs are members of unions affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

James Slimmer, president of the Graphics Communications Conference Local 29C, which represents the company’s press operators, said the union plans to negotiate severance benefits with Pioneer Press management on Tuesday.

“This is a very sad day for the people working there at present, and everyone that has ever been employed with the Pioneer Press,” Slimmer said.

Mike Bucsko, executive officer of the Minnesota Newspaper Guild Typographical Union, said the layoffs “represent the loss of hundreds of years of service from union members to the Pioneer Press.”

Digital First Media, which operates the parent company of the Pioneer Press, said in a news release that it is actively marketing the 168,000-square-foot printing plant at 1 Ridder Circle through Twenty Lake Holdings. The building’s most recent assessed value, as of January 2013, is $5.4 million, according to Ramsey County online property tax records. The plant has been in operation since 1983.

Gilmore estimated it will take up to a year to decommission the plant and prepare it for use by a new occupant. He said the company doesn’t have any concrete plans for its printing equipment, adding that pieces of it may go to another Digital First Media property.

The downtown St. Paul headquarters of the Pioneer Press also is for sale. The assessed value of that 172,430-square-foot building is $3 million.

Nick Woltman can be reached at 651-228-5189. Follow him on Twitter at @nickwoltman.