The Local‘s loss is Baristanet‘s gain, as the media company will begin covering the New Jersey communities of Maplewood, Millburn, and South Orange, which are being vacated by The New York Times‘ hyperlocal news initiative, with The Local directing its users to Baristanet.

Baristanet had already been serving fellow New Jersey communities Montclair, Glen Ridge, and Bloomfield since 2004, and the addition of Maplewood, Millburn, and South Orange will bring its total coverage area to some 150,000 people. The company is run by former Times New Jersey columnist Debbie Galant and former New York Daily News city editor Liz George.

The Local will forge on in Brooklyn and Manhattan’s East Village.

From The Local’s “farewell” post:

More than a year-and-a-half ago, The New York Times set out on an experiment in hyperlocal and collaborative journalism. We devoted two full-time reporters to the effort, as well as an editor and a number of support and advisory staff journalists. And we picked two fascinating and vibrant communities to launch our little enterprise.

From the beginning, we described this as a pilot, a test, an experiment, because we knew that our path in community journalism couldn’t be paved with sites staffed by full-time New York Times journalists. Nevertheless, we were committed to pursuing the journalistic lessons to be found in Web-based community coverage, and made this an editorial priority.

The decision has been made to use the knowledge we have gained from the New Jersey Local and take the experiment in a new and exciting direction. And so today, this part of The New York Times‘ hyperlocal experiment has come to an end.

The Times is passing the baton to another site, Baristanet.com. Baristanet is one of the most successful hyperlocal Web sites in the country, and its owners, Debbie Galant and Liz George, both experienced writers and editors, are leaders in the field.

This is an opportunity for The Local’s contributors to continue their blogging and reach a larger local audience, and for Local readers to continue to receive high-quality coverage, with a bold personality and lively writing.

Galant said:

These are towns we already know, frequent and love. We’ll honor the community established by The Local while putting our own stamp on it.

And George added:

Baristaville is one part geography, one part personality, and one part state of mind. We’ve wanted to “move” to Maplewood ever since we sneaked into the town pool and blogged about it. We look forward to bringing these neighboring towns together into one Baristaville.