Pottsville newspaper sells newsroom to housing developer for $25k
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL FILE - The Pottsville Republican-Herald offices on Mahantango Street in Pottsville.
POTTSVILLE – The county’s lone daily print newspaper is selling off properties again, this time at its home base in the city.
Pottsville Republican, Inc., publishers of the Republican-Herald, announced in their March 4 edition they had sold their newsroom, the former Necho Allen Hotel’s ballroom, to the hotel building’s owner, Barefield Development.
Since 1994, the Republican has owned the ballroom, which was partitioned off from the rest of the hotel at the corner of Mahantango and Centre, and connected to the newspaper’s office at 111 Mahantango.
According to the Schuylkill County Parcel Locator, the property was sold on Feb. 20 to Barefield for $25,000. Barefield, the Republican says, plans to convert the ballroom into a community space for the Necho Allen’s residents.
Two more newspaper-owned properties across the street were sold as well. Two properties at 116-120 Mahantango were sold to Anathallo, LLC, of Pottsville for $30,000 and $40,000 respectively, according to the parcel locator.
The newspaper will retain its offices at 111 Mahantango Street, into which its newsroom has been relocated.
The properties are the latest to be sold or listed for sale by the newspaper in recent years. According to online real estate listings, the newspaper’s printing facility in the Bulls section of Norwegian Township was listed for sale in 2017 and remains for sale.
Around the same time, the newspaper’s Shenandoah office was listed for sale, eight months after it was quietly shuttered. The closure left Shenandoah without a newspaper office of some sort for the first time since 1870.
The Shenandoah office of the Republican opened in 1995, when the newspaper acquired the Shenandoah Evening Herald, promptly closing its office atop Locust Mountain on Ringtown Boulevard. That building has remained vacant ever since.
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