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Posted on Thu, Dec 3, 2009 : 6 a.m.

NA Publishing moving to Venture Drive office in Pittsfield Township

By Paula Gardner

NA Publishing Inc. is completing its move to Pittsfield Township as the microfilm archiving company repositions itself after acquisition by a Detroit-based private equity firm.

NA - formerly National Archive Publishing Co.- is moving into 4750 Venture Dr., located northeast of the intersection of State and Morgan roads.

That building made local real estate news over the summer, when an entity related to Friedman Real Estate Group of Farmington Hills acquired it and an adjacent property from a lender and priced the offices at well-under market rate: $7.95 per square foot.

The move from NA’s existing headquarters at 300 N. Zeeb Road in Scio Township concludes several recent deals as the company’s new owner, Superior Capital Partners, outsources operations.

Among them:

• Edwards Brothers, the Ann Arbor book manufacturer, is taking over coursepack production for NA’s XanEdu division.

• The Crowley Co. of Maryland is opening a 20,000-square-foot facility in Pittsfield Townshp as it takes over microfilm services for NA and hires about 40 former NA employees.

“We’re very excited because what we’ve been able to do is outsource a significant amount of manufacturing to local firms that have employed or re-employed all of our employees,” said Mark Carroll, managing partner of Superior Capital.

“That was very important to us and that was achieved.”

Remaining staff - the exact number was not available - will be working out of a 15,000-square-foot office in the Venture Drive Building.

That facility will house all of NA’s account service managers and publishing personnel, Carroll said.

NA’s data center was moved to a separate location, he added.

The office move comes as the building on Zeeb road is re-listed for sale with a reduced price of $4.4 million.

The office move concludes many of the steps Superior needed to tackle to make NA viable, after acquiring it from lender National City, now PNC Bank.

“We’re please with the progress the company is making,” Carroll said.

NAPC was purchased by former ProQuest executives in 2005, and the Zeeb Road building had headquartered that business - part of which also was sold to Cambridge Information Group - for about 20 years. Cambridge now operates its own division under the ProQuest name.