SAVANNAH ― Coastal Georgia’s best-known exports may be pralines, St. Patrick’s Day memories and Gulfstream jets. But on paper, the Savannah region has long been about paper products.
A nearly 90-year legacy as a papermaking hub will soon be diminished as International Paper shutters its Savannah-area operations. The world’s largest paper products manufacturer announced last week it would close two paper mills and two accompanying facilities in September, eliminating 1,100 jobs.
In addition, the company reported the pending sale of another area mill to an industrial investment group, with no word yet on the mill’s future operations plan.
International Paper classified the moves as strategic in its press release and related to a recently completed acquisition of DS Smith , a UK-base