The Tampa Bay Times has put its downtown St. Petersburg headquarters up for sale in an attempt to pay off a $28 million loan that comes due at the end of next year.

Times Chairman and CEO Paul Tash, in a letter to his staff on Thursday, said selling the property would relieve the Times of the loan it took out in 2013 to pay off previous debts. The loan comes due in December 2016.

The potential sale is just the latest in a series of moves by the newspaper to liquidate assets and cut costs to pay debts.

The Times sold the historic Tramor Cafeteria building on Fourth Street South for $2.7 million in October. That sale included a small parking lot.

Just last year, the Times cut employee pay by 5 percent and offered buy-out packages to employees. It also abandoned its naming-rights deal with the Tampa Bay Lightning at what was known for several years as the Tampa Bay Times Forum in downtown Tampa.

In his letter, Tash said the proceeds from the sale of the eight-story, 250,000-square-foot headquarters, combined with other pending transactions, would pay off the $28 million loan with Boston-based Crystal Financial LLC.
http://tbo.com/news/business/tampa-b...debt-20150116/