Claremont  — Mikros Manufacturing has purchased the building on River Road that was home to the Eagle Times newspaper until earlier this month, Brian Whipple with Town and Country Realty Associates said Monday.

The $865,000 purchase of the 26,500-square-foot building with 5 acres will increase Mikros’ office and manufacturing space to 41,500 square feet. The company built a 15,000-square-foot building just off River Road on Colonel Ashley Lane in 2002, when it moved to Claremont from Lebanon.

Company founder and president Javier Valenzuela said Mikros will move its machine shop about a half-mile south to the former Eagle building, which will free up space at the Colonel Ashley Lane location for other purposes.

Valenzuela said the additional space will not mean any new jobs at this time as the company increased staff last year. Mikros employs about 40 and 13 of those jobs will move to the new location, Valenzuela said. The company makes nozzles for industrial ink jet printers and cold plates for cooling high powered electronics.

The Eagle Times building was owned by the paper’s former owner Harvey Hill and was leased to the paper’s new owners, who bought it in 2009, after it had closed down in July of that year. 

In 1989, under previous owners, the Eagle Times moved to River Road from Sullivan Street. The newspaper now occupies space at 45 Crescent St.

The newspaper is no longer printed in the city. Instead, the paper is sent electronically to The Keene Sentinel, where it is printed. It is then loaded into a vehicle and driven to Claremont.

Patrick O'Grady covers Claremont and Newport for the Valley News. He can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com