NEWARK — The Star-Ledger, which is threatening to shut down without major concessions from its unions, has put its headquarters in Newark up for sale.

Publisher Richard Vezza said yesterday the move was aimed at saving money, noting many newspapers across the country are shedding costly downtown buildings as they have been forced to downsize, in favor of smaller offices.

“We’re going to lease office space,” Vezza said.

Where that will be — assuming the newspaper continues to publish next year — he did not know. “We need parking and need to be close to public transportation,” he said.

The publisher said the sale had nothing to do with the newspaper's ongoing negotiations with its production unions. The Star-Ledger says it lost $19.8 million last year and expects the same this year, and has threatened to shut down the paper by Dec. 31 unless the unions agree to $9 million in concessions — or allow the paper to outsource production to another company.

Ed Shown, president of the Council of Star-Ledger Unions and Teamsters GCC Local 8-N — the union that prints the newspaper — did not view the building sale as a bargaining ploy.

“It makes perfect business sense to do what they are doing with the building,” he said. “It is not uncommon for a lot of the newspapers to downgrade their inventory.”

The Star-Ledger moved into its headquarters at the corner of Court and Washington Streets, two blocks from the federal courthouse, nearly 50 years ago. But the big printing presses that once dominated the ground floor of the grey brick building were moved out long ago, as the newspaper consolidated its printing operations outside the city. And with cutbacks and layoffs of recent years, many offices within the sprawling 177,000-square-foot Star-Ledger building are now vacant. The paper is now printed in Montville.

The Jersey Journal building in Journal Square

Vezza said the owners of the newspaper, Advance Publications, have been quietly marketing the building since last year. But next week, a "For Sale" sign will go up on the side of 1 Star-Ledger Plaza, and Douglas Elliman Real Estate confirmed it has been retained as a broker

.

"We want to be public and aggressive in marketing the building," said Vezza.

It is not an uncommon strategy in an industry hard-hit by the changing economics of publishing in a digital era.

Here in New Jersey, the Jersey Journal, also owned by Advance, sold its Journal Square building in Jersey City about four months ago, according to Richard Diamond, an Advance executive. The paper is still there temporarily and officials say they are close to signing a lease for new space in Secaucus, while looking for satellite office space in Jersey City.

The Times of Trenton sold its Perry Street headquarters and relocated the company’s advertising and editorial staff more than a year ago to an office building adjacent to the Mercer County Waterfront Park in Trenton, Diamond noted.

The South Jersey Times — an Advance Publications newspaper created from the merger of three papers in Gloucester, Cumberland and Salem counties — has an agreement to sell its two remaining buildings in Woodbury and Salem. The newspaper plans on moving to new space in Gloucester County.

The Record, owned by North Jersey Media Group, is now based in Woodland Park. Its former headquarters on River Street in Hackensack is being sold to a local developer who plans to build a residential and retail community, in a deal announced last week by North Jersey Media Group.

Elsewhere, the Miami Herald relocated from its offices on Biscayne Bay in May, after selling its 13.9-acre downtown property in 2011 for $236 million to a developer. It moved to a much smaller building in Doral, four miles west of Miami International Airport.

And in February, Washington Post executives said they were considering relocating the company from its 63-year-old headquarters in downtown Washington.

Vezza said there was no set asking price for the sale of The Star-Ledger building.

“That’s the way you sell this kind of building,” he said. “We have an idea of what is reasonable.”

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