Sun Gazette Parent Company Sold

American Community Newspapers LLC, the parent company of the local Northern Virginia Sun Gazette and several other local publications, sold its Northern Virginia division to the Texas-based HPR Hemlock on Tuesday.

Along with the Sun Gazette that covers  McLean, Vienna, Oakton, and Great Falls, the sale includes the Arlington Gazette, Ashburn Today, Leesburg Today, Loudon Business, Loudoun Life and Middleburg Life. Together, the publication circulates among more than 191,000 residents, according to Leesburg Today.

Despite the transaction, which had been planned since October 2011, according to Leesburg Today, the publications will remain focused on the local coverage and community journalism they have in some places provided for more than 70 years, executives said.

"HPR Hemlock will be relying on the people who have built these businesses to continue to run them as if they own them,” Richard L. Connor, a media executive overseeing the sale, told Leesburg today.

Along with the Sun Gazette that covers Vienna, Oakton, Great Falls and McLean, the sale includes the Arlington Gazette, Ashburn Today, Leesburg Today, Loudon Business, Loudoun Life and Middleburg Life. Together, the publication circulates among more than 191,000 residents, according to Leesburg Today.

ACN has owned the Sun Gazette since 2005, it said in a statement on its website Wednesday. The company has also sold publications in Minnesota, Texas and Ohio.

The statement said staff "will continue to make decisions locally because there are no corporate directives or corporate staff attempting to make what need to be local decisions and strategic initiatives.”

The paper was founded in 1930 as the Northern Virginia Sun newspaper.

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