Northeast Florida local publishing
First Coast Observer
First Coast Observer is a source-linked local publication focused on Northeast Florida's built environment and public record. It gives readers a structured way to follow development, government, utilities, real estate, schools, technology, local business, public safety, courts, and neighborhood activity.
Live owner-operated publication
Project snapshot
- Built for
- Readers following Northeast Florida decisions, records, development, and neighborhoods
- Core workflow
- Monitor approved sources → prepare a structured draft → publisher review → source-linked publication
- Current state
- Live publication with ownership, standards, corrections, author, and source disclosures
What the product actually does
Local coverage organized by subject and place
The publication supports a front page, news archive, category pages, article routes, author pages, neighborhood hubs, feeds, and news sitemaps. Readers can enter through a single story or browse by development, government, utilities, real estate, technology, schools, local business, and neighborhood context.
Automation supports, but does not replace, publishing
The editorial pipeline can monitor approved public sources, filter possible topics, collect source material, prepare drafts, and select licensed or source-provided imagery. A draft is held for publisher review and must include a headline, summary, body, image, author, category, publication date, and at least one named source before publication.
Visible accountability
First Coast Observer identifies Sam Avanessov as owner and publisher, describes how articles are produced, discloses ownership and self-funding, publishes editorial standards, and maintains a corrections route. Promotional or sponsored material must be labeled, and outside business interests require disclosure when they create a material conflict.
BroadBuilder’s role
What BroadBuilder delivered
BroadBuilder built the publication's Next.js and Sanity architecture, editorial ingestion and review pipeline, article and neighborhood information structure, source and image handling, newsroom trust pages, feeds, sitemaps, technical SEO, analytics boundaries, and production release workflow.