Arthur said the offer isn't best for Gannett investors because the price is too low, but other analysts, including those at JPMorgan Chase, took the opposite view. In a research paper, the bank offered a grim assessment of Gannett's recent performance, calling the publisher's performance "lackluster." Gannett's stock sunk 41 percent between June 2015, when it split up with its radio and television unit, and the end of last year. In January, layoffs at BuzzFeed and HuffPost accentuated the difficulty of growing a digital news business. On Jan. 24, Gannett began laying off dozens more newsroom staffers around the country. Should a deal with Digital First proceed, the churning of buildings that once housed newsrooms and printing presses is likely to dramatically accelerate, analysts say. Former newspaper buildings have been recycled into a CubeSmart self-storage facility, a Granite Expo store specializing in quartz countertops and a charter school.