Colorado-based newspaper company Thirteenth Street Media Inc. has been named as a potential buyer of Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc.’s Arizona newspaper.

Freedom, the parent company of the Orange County Register, reported it had received a letter of intent from Thirteenth Street to purchase the East Valley Tribune on Monday.

The price of the sale was not disclosed.

Thirteenth Street Media President Randy Miller has an extensive newspaper background and owns The Explorer, a 50,000-circulation free-distribution weekly covering north Tucson, and the Telluride Daily Planet, a free-distribution daily in Colorado.

Thirteenth Street’s Explorer is printed by the Freedom’s East Valley Tribune printing facility.

Miller said the acquisition is a good fit because both papers share a free-circulation business model and a similar approach to suburban coverage.

Miller said the East Valley Tribune, like the Explorer, would focus on "being the essential source of local news and advertising."

Freedom is fast-tracking the sale and would like it to close by the end of the year.

The deal will still need to be approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Court, which means Miller will take on both the paper's assets and debts if it goes through.

Millar indicated that it plans to keep a substantial number of Tribune employees.

Freedom, which is undergoing bankruptcy reorganization, had planned to close the Tribune by Dec. 31 after failing to find a buyer for the paper. The closure would cover the paper as well as its Web sites.

The East Valley Tribune is Freedom’s third-largest paper with circulation of about 90,000.

The Register is the company’s largest with about 213,000 subscribers followed by the Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo., at about 96,000.