LEWISTON – The in-town building that houses the Twin City Times and its sister publication, Maine Standard Times, is up for sale, their publisher hoping to relocate to smaller space.

Located at 240 Lisbon St., the property has two apartments upstairs in addition to first-floor office space. Millett Coldwell Banker is brokering the sale. The asking price is $120,000.

Peter and Laurie Steele of Minot edit and publish the free weekly publications. Peter Steele, via an e-mail, said the deal is strictly for the property, noting, “We are not selling the paper.”

“We’ve been considering selling the building for a couple of years; it has always been too big for our needs. Coming from Cape Cod, I couldn’t resist buying the building back in 1999, even though it was way too big, because it was so cheap compared to the outrageous prices on the Cape and in Boston,” said Steele.

“Since the market has come up, now is a good time to sell. I’m sure in five years I’ll say, darn, I should have held onto that building! But we just don’t need all that space.”

Steele said his small staff, the lack of free parking nearby and the headaches of being a landlord all contributed to his desire to sell.

“All we want is newer office space with plenty of free parking. We were looking at space in the old CMP building, but that deal is on hold. We’d still like to maintain a visible presence, either in the downtowns or along one of the main arteries, like Center Street or Minot Ave.”

A separate ad in last week’s Twin City Times lists the editor’s SUV for sale, as well as a truck the two newspapers used for delivery purposes.

“As for the vehicles,” Steele noted, “there is an equally mundane reason we are selling them: We don’t need such a big delivery truck. Our delivery service uses its own two cargo vans. They only use our truck for deliveries in the outlying areas. Besides, Laurie and I want new vehicles for ourselves.”

Steele said the couple’s foray into producing a statewide paper – a move made about a year ago – was short-lived.

“We are no longer publishing Maine Standard Times on a weekly basis, but we might publish it as a special section or a stand-alone publication before elections or something like that. We do have plans to expand Twin City Times, which you will hear about in the near future.”