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Around the Bay

Business news from around Tampa Bay

By Times Staff
Published October 29, 2007

St. Petersburg

Widow won't let Weekly Challenger and its mission fade away

From its audacious beginnings, the Weekly Challenger has placed demands on all who've touched it.

Ethel Johnson became the newspaper's publisher after her husband, Cleveland, died in 2001.

"He always said it was quite a challenge every week just to get it out," she said.

This year, the family-owned newspaper celebrated 40 years speaking to the city's African-American community. While the paper is still a niche publication, its history is felt well beyond its tiny offices on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street S.

Cleveland Johnson got circulation up to about 35,000 at its peak in the 1990s. By the time of his death, it was less than a third of that. Ethel, who had raised five children while her husband built a newspaper, was suddenly thrown into publishing.

"The only thing he had told me was that it had to hit the streets on Thursday, but he didn't leave any instructions on how," said Mrs. Johnson, who for a while thought about selling the paper. "I don't know what came over me to think I could run a newspaper."

She sought help from SCORE, the retired executives organization; from the city's Business Assistance Center; and from the community. While grieving her husband's loss, she shepherded a transformation that has the paper again turning a profit.

Trinity

Prudential Tropical invests in market share

The real estate market is not much to cheer about. But Prudential Tropical Realty is bullish enough about the future that it acquired Marie Powell Realty offices in Port Richey and Spring Hill and is looking to scoop up more firms.

Why invest in residential real estate? Prudential Tropical co-owner Dewey Mitchell said his strategy is to expand the company's market share so it'll be well-positioned once home sales go back up.

"We're in acquisition mode," said Mitchell, who declined to disclose the terms of the sale. "It is somewhat of a contrarian view ... but we're looking at it in the long haul."

This makes the second announcement in the past two weeks of the purchase of a residential real estate firm.

Realtor Greg Armstrong bought the residential portion of F.I. Grey and Son, the prominent New Port Richey real estate firm that has been in the Grey family for 83 years.

Armstrong said that it was because of the downturn in residential real estate sales that he could afford to buy F.I. Grey.

"It's just like buying a house," he told the Pasco Times last week. "You try to buy at the bottom. And we're definitely at the bottom."

[Last modified October 26, 2007, 21:59:12]