The headquarters of the daily newspaper in Schuylkill County, the Republican Herald, is now listed for sale.
Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices is the agency charged with selling the property. Eric Seitzinger is the listing agent on it.
The attached properties the paper owns are 111, 119, and 121 Mahantongo Street, with an included parking lot across from the buildings. The asking price for the entire 23,087 square-foot property is $450,000.
This development represents the latest step in the possible demise of the local newspaper once known as the Pottsville Republican and before that, The Daily Republican.
In 1995, that company purchased the former Shenandoah Evening Herald. The paper then became known as Pottsville Republican & Evening Herald and then just Republican Herald.
Times-Shamrock purchased the local newspaper from JH Zerbey Newspapers in 2003 and in late-August announced it was selling its entire newspaper group to MediaNews Group, which is owned by a hedge fund known as Alden Global Capital.
MediaNews Group is known for consolidating operations at newspapers so this development of selling off the Pottsville properties was somewhat expected.
Soon after the sale was announced, walk-in service for the public on Mahantongo St. was stopped. Many employees at the Pottsville paper were offered buyouts from their jobs and has left the paper staffed thinly, to put it gently.