The overlapping Northland newspapers of Sun Publications and News-Press & Gazette Co., parent company of the St. Joseph News-Press, will be combined after News-Press’ purchase of Sun.

The transaction, first reported Friday in The Kansas City Star, calls for a division of News-Press & Gazette to buy Sun Publications of Overland Park, which publishes free weekly newspapers in Johnson County and the Northland as well as other publications.

Terms of the purchase from Sun’s owner, American Community Newspapers LLC of Eden Prairie, Minn., were not disclosed.

David R. Bradley, president of News-Press & Gazette, said Sun Publications and News-Press & Gazette’s metropolitan area publications would be jointly managed.

News-Press & Gazette’s area publications include the Dispatch-Tribune of Platte and Clay counties, Liberty Tribune, Raytown Tribune, Kearney Courier, Smithville Herald and The Wednesday, which serves the Ward Parkway corridor in south Kansas City. The company says the publications have a combined weekly circulation of about 90,000 copies.

“This gives us the chance to extend our suburban properties around Kansas City,” Bradley said. “It’s a logical fit with our attempt to have a good, strong group of community newspapers in the suburbs around Kansas City.”

Sun Publications’ main franchise is in Johnson County, where it publishes weekly newspapers under the Sun banner. The company also publishes several papers in the Northland, including the Gladstone Sun-News, Liberty Sun-News, Northland Sun-News and Platte County Sun-Gazette. Sun’s newspapers boast weekly circulation of about 150,000 copies.

Also included in the sale are three other Sun publications, the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle and Kansas City Nursing News, both weeklies, and St. Louis Nursing News, a monthly.

Steve Rose, whose father, Stan Rose, founded Sun Publications 55 years ago, will continue to write a weekly column for the Johnson County publications.

Roy Biondi, group publisher for Sun Publications, will join News-Press & Gazette in the same role, with oversight of the company’s publications in metropolitan Kansas City.

Not included in the sale is Sun Publications’ headquarters building at Interstate 435 and Metcalf Avenue in Overland Park. The building will continue to be owned by the Rose family, which will lease it to News-Press & Gazette. The presses in the building will continue to print the Johnson County publications.

The operations of Sun’s and News-Press & Gazette’s Northland papers will be merged, Bradley said, resulting in the elimination of about 10 news and production jobs.

Once the sale is completed, News-Press & Gazette will put out three newspapers in the Northland: the Liberty Tribune, covering Liberty; the Sun-Gazette, covering Platte County; and the Sun-Tribune , covering Clay County.

Bradley said News-Press & Gazette plans to increase circulation of the Northland publications, which are distributed free, by 20 percent.

In a written statement, Gene Carr, chief executive of American Community Newspapers, said that his company decided to sell Sun because it had “become apparent to us that we were not going to be successful in this market as the consolidator of community newspapers with the same strategic and critical mass that we have in our other three markets.”

American Community Newspapers publishes three daily and 60 weekly newspapers, mainly in Greater Minneapolis, Greater Dallas and northern Virginia.

News-Press & Gazette, in addition to its publications in metropolitan Kansas City, publishes the daily St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press, its flagship newspaper, and the Atchison (Kan.) Globe, and four weekly and twice-weekly papers in Hiawatha, Paola, Osawatomie and Louisburg in Kansas.

The company also owns cable television stations in Missouri, Arizona and California, network-affiliated television stations in the western United States and television and radio stations catering to Hispanic viewers and listeners.