UPDATE: Tierney, Drexel Mum On Sale

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We’ve had a request for comment into Drexel’s media relations office since last night, and a follow-up phone call this morning asking for confirmation or denial of the rumors floating around that Drexel has bought or is about to buy the Inquirer Building at 400 North Broad. And as of this writing: Nothing. Given the pace of the modern news cycle, you might be tempted to say that Drexel’s communication’s office is utterly incompetent — I mean, c’mon these rumors are floating on the Internet for going on 24 hours and to date the Drexel communications office has communicated nothing — but then you would be mistaken. Much like its corporate brethren, the modern college communications office is not about facilitating communication. It’s about the CONTROL of information. Which is why this feels like stalling, and Spidey senses are saying there is some ‘there’ there. Plus, this just popped up on PHILLY.COM:

Drexel University real estate people are among the potential buyers who have made repeat visits to the Inquirer and Daily News building at 400 North Broad Street and the parking garage and lot behind it on 15th Street in recent weeks.

Agents for Drexel’s Center City medical campus, which includes the dorms, bookstore and classrooms surrounding Hahnemann University Hospital, have also been talking to property owners in the 300 block of North 15th Street, just south of the papers’ back door, according to real estate sources.

No word on whether Drexel would share space with, or displace, the 1,000-plus news, advertising, circulation, finance and online workers now in the space. Philadelphia Media chief executive officer Brian P. Tierney declined comment. A Drexel spokesman and the university’s real estate office did not immediately return calls seeking comment. STILL DEVELOPING…

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