Packaging facility might close

RALEIGH -- MeadWestvaco could close its local research facility as the packaging giant continues cutting costs and consolidating offices.

The Richmond, Va.-based company recently notified its 140 employees at the Center for Packaging Innovation on N.C. State's Centennial Campus that it's considering shutting down the facility.

The center was announced with fanfare four years ago with plans to create positions paying $95,212 a year, more than double the average Wake County wage.

"MWV is studying the possibility of relocating our CPI facility in Raleigh to the company's new headquarters in Richmond, Virginia," MeadWestvaco wrote in a prepared statement. "We informed our employees that this was under study a couple of weeks ago, and told them we would be making a decision in early March."

MeadWestvaco stood to gain as much as $5.19 million in state incentives for investing $14 million to create the Raleigh facility. The company has not met its hiring targets and has not received any of the state incentives.

It occupies about two-thirds of a 66,000-square-foot building on the Centennial Campus, which houses about 60 companies and agencies.

"They were an excellent partner," said Dennis Kekas, an associate vice chancellor at N.C. State. Kekas said that professors and students in textiles and other disciplines worked with MeadWestvaco on a variety of research projects but that the company constitutes a small portion of the Centennial complex.

A year ago, MeadWestvaco announced a major cost-cutting effort to eliminate 2,000 jobs, about 10 percent of the company's work force, and close or restructure 12 to 14 production facilities.

The potential closure of the Raleigh facility would also deliver cost savings.

"MWV is studying this option as a way to leverage efficiencies and maximize space in our new headquarters building in Richmond," spokeswoman Jennifer McMahon said.