The Plant City Times & Observer is officially the Plant City Observer following a mutual split from the Tampa Bay Times.
The Plant City Times & Observer is back to its roots. It is the Plant City Observer again.
The owners of the newspaper announced Tuesday the Plant City partners have acquired the 50% stake owned by the Times Publishing Co., publishers of the Tampa Bay Times, in a friendly transaction. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
“We’re very proud to have been partners of this award-winning weekly newspaper for the past four years,” Bruce Faulmann, Tampa Bay Times vice president of Advertising and Marketing, said. “Since the purchase of the Tampa Tribune in 2016, the Tampa Bay Times has become the daily newspaper for the bay area. As we focus our efforts on the Times, we know the Plant City Observer will continue to thrive.”
Ed Verner, one of the partners of Plant City Observer LLC, the group that started the paper in 2012, commented on the transaction Wednesday.
“I have appreciated our joint venture with the Times, but I am happy with the direction the Plant City Observer is moving, as a home-grown, home operated, and once again home-owned small weekly newspaper," Verner said. "I look forward to continued support from our town. We are unique, as is our city, and to serve it best, we should stand on our own.”
Plant City Observer LLC’s other partners include Plant City Commissioner and CPA Nate Kilton; Felix Haynes, retired president of the Plant City campus of Hillsborough Community College; Karen Berry, publisher of the Plant City Observer and In the Field Magazine; and Sarasota-based Observer Media Group Inc.
Faulmann said Tampa Bay Times subscribers will continue to receive the east Hillsborough edition of the Tampa Tribune every Friday inside the daily newspaper.
The Plant City Observer will revert to delivery on Thursdays throughout Plant City, and home delivery will be returned to Walden Lake and Pinedale with potential to increase to other areas, Berry said.
“I’d like to thank our readers for their continued support,” Berry said. “We are looking forward to the next phase of this journey. Being born and raised here in Plant City, I am blessed to be a part of such a rooted community. The Plant City Observer is headed in the right direction and we, as a team, look forward to covering events and happenings, as well as promoting local businesses.”
