From left: David Ludwick, Community Impact Newspaper operations manager; founders John and Jennifer Garrett; and Pflugerville Mayor Jeff Coleman break ground at the site of the newspaper's new headquarters.[/caption]

Community Impact Newspaper co-founder and CEO John Garrett is making sure the newspaper retains its roots in Pflugerville—the same city in which the company was founded and has operated from for more than seven years.

City leaders, business representatives and members of the Pflugerville community joined the staff of Community Impact on March 8 in celebrating the ground breaking of the company's new corporate headquarters in East Pflugerville.

"We are very proud of the fact we get to call [Pflugerville] home," Garrett said. "We are very excited about the design of the building, and we are certainly excited about the location."

Garrett entered into an incentive agreement Dec. 18 with the City of Pflugerville and the Pflugerville Community Development Corp. to build a $2.5 million, 16,000-square-foot corporate headquarters within the 130 Commerce Center mixed-use development park in East Pflugerville. Garrett said he hopes to have the new company headquarters built and occupied before the end of 2013.

"We are about to build a building but what is really important are the people that come inside there and the relationships we have had. We are here to do more than just put words on a paper," Garrett said.

Pflugerville Mayor Jeff Coleman said retaining the home-grown newspaper company was important to the city.

"I cannot think of a better business than Community Impact because it is Pflugerville-born, and it is Pflugerville-bred," Coleman said. "[Community Impact] has spent every day of its corporate life in Pflugerville using local supplies and vendors. John truly understands local and works very hard at that. From a city standpoint, this is going to be our crown jewel."

Garrett and his wife, Jennifer, are Pflugerville High School graduates who founded Community Impact Newspaper in 2005. The company has grown from one newspaper serving the Pflugerville and Round Rock communities to 13 separate newspapers with 90 employees and a total monthly circulation of more than 870,000 covering the Austin, Houston and Dallas metropolitan areas.