New York hedge fund Atalaya Capital Management were the winners in a bankruptcy auction in Tampa today to see who would control the Creative Loafing newspaper chain, owners of the Washington City Paper and other alternative weeklies, reports the St. Petersburg Times. Atalaya was Creative Loafing’s largest creditor by far, and they took control of the company by significantly outbidding a partnership made up of now former Loafing CEO Ben Eason and another hedge fund creditor, BIA Digital Partners. Atalaya offered $5 million, while the Eason group opened with $2.32 million.

Today’s decision removes some of the long-standing uncertainty for the City Paper newsroom, which has seen several rounds of layoffs over the last few years since Creative Loafing bought the publication, as well as a restructuring toward an emphasis on web publishing. Creative Loafing will no longer be burdened by its crushing debt load, which is a clear positive, said City Paper Editor-in-Chief Erik Wemple. But that doesn’t mean everything is suddenly hunky-dory for the alt-weekly.

“There’s no real whoops and hollers of joy around here, simply because there’s a great deal that’s unknown,” Wemple said. “A change of ownership doesn’t mean that all of a sudden newspapering is a different environment.”

Wemple said representatives from Atalaya were planning an on-site visit to the newspaper’s Adams Morgan offices in the coming weeks.