Austin Newspaper Sold for $47.5M; Prime Downtown Site Set for Redevelopment
GateHouse’s News & Design Center in Austin.
AUSTIN – The Austin American-Statesman, which has served as the leading newspaper in Texas’ capital for decades, is being sold to New York-based GateHouse Media for $47.5 million, according to reporting from the Statesman.
The transaction excludes the paper’s valuable 19-acre property and its main newsroom building on the southern edge of downtown Austin. The Statesman campus at 305 Congress Avenue fronts Lady Bird Lake and features mature oak trees, placing it close to major hotels and condominium developments.
The newspaper, with a daily circulation around 85,000, is being sold by Cox Enterprises. The deal is expected to close on April 2, according to Shonda Novak, the Statesman’s real estate reporter.
The Statesman property itself remains in the hands of members of the Cox family, who are advancing plans for a large mixed-use redevelopment. The master plan is being prepared by the international architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with Austin-based Endeavor Real Estate as the development partner. CMG Landscape Architecture has also been retained. The redevelopment proposal envisions as much as 2.1 million square feet of retail, office space, residential units and a hotel.
GateHouse Media operates roughly 130 daily newspapers. The company recently completed the acquisition of the Eugene Register-Guard in Oregon as part of its ongoing expansion.
GateHouse traces its roots to Liberty Group Publishing and was acquired by Fortress Investment Group in 2005, when the name was changed to GateHouse Media. Over subsequent years the company grew through acquisitions, taking on Community Newspaper Co. of Massachusetts and its regional competitors, along with several Bay State titles such as the Brockton Enterprise, Taunton Gazette, Fall River Herald, Cape Cod Times and Patriot Ledger. In 2014 GateHouse added the Providence Journal, Rhode Island’s largest daily.
Throughout its history GateHouse has acquired and operated newspapers and advertising publications in a wide range of states, including Arkansas, California, Connecticut, New York, Illinois, Kansas, Virginia and West Virginia. In Texas the company owns publications in cities such as Lubbock, Amarillo, Stephenville, Waxahachie, Alice and Brownwood.
Today GateHouse is one of the nation’s largest newspaper publishing and website development companies. In Austin it runs a centralized News & Design Center located in the Northview Business Center near Interstate 35. That facility handles content preparation, copy editing and page design for many of the company’s papers.
Beyond producing material for GateHouse’s own newspapers, the Austin center also provides services to commercial clients. The center’s offerings include copy editing, page design, web development and training. Currently, the printed editions of more than 200 GateHouse Media newspapers are designed and edited at the Austin center, which also supports product development for their companion websites and mobile platforms.
