The Central Edmonton News Society and the Oliver and Downtown Edmonton community leagues are launching a new magazine entitled The Yards.

The Yards will be a quarterly glossy/newsprint publication that focuses on cultural, planning and social issues in the Edmonton area—particularly in the Downtown and Oliver neighborhoods.

"For the first time, our community leagues has the ability to reach every single resident and we're very excited with the community-building opportunities that it brings,” Oliver Community League president Jarrett Campbell said.

National Magazine Awards winning writer Omar Mouallem will be editing The Yards and Vikki Wiercinski—who revamped Vue Weekly in 2010— will be designing the publication.

"Newspapers and newsrooms are shrinking, but there's still hunger for local news—especially in a city growing as steadily as Edmonton," Mouallem said. "Nowhere is this excitement and uncertainty more visible than in the city's core. So as a hyperlocal magazine we can home in on that growth, in on our backyards, and we can understand it and access it better than anyone else."

The Yards will be distributed to the core’s residents through direct distribution to 24,000 mailboxes starting Dec. 3.