Fort Wayne will lose 116 jobs next year when Graphic Packaging International closes its Fort Wayne plant, a company spokesperson confirmed today.

The company, a subsidiary of Graphic Packaging Holding Co. and based in Marietta, Ga., announced Tuesday it plans to close its folding-carton facilities at 102 W. Superior St. and in Santa Clara, Calif., and move business to other U.S. locations sometime midyear 2010.

The closures are related to its March 2008 acquisition of Altivity Packaging.

The Superior Street facility will remain open until mid-2010, and company officials will negotiate with employees up until that point on the possibility of relocating to other plants within the company, spokeswoman Cindy Baerman said.

Union members will be offered severance packages, she said.

“As one of the world's largest packaging companies, we continue to push aggressively in 2009 to integrate assets from the 2008 combination between Altivity Packaging and Graphic Packaging and streamline operations,” said David W. Scheible, president and chief executive officer of Graphic Packaging International, in a news release. “These key closures will complete the plant rationalization element of our integration efforts.”

In 2006, Altivity Packaging invested $542,000 in a new machine that converts rolls of paper into individual sheets. It employed 131 locally at that time. It was Smurfit-Stone before that, employing 165 in Fort Wayne in 1998.