A filtration company is closing its LaPorte plant and laying off 173 workers.

Germany-based Freudenberg Residential Filtration Technologies told the Indiana Department of Labor in a Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, it plans to close its LaPorte plant and relocate the operation downstate. The manufacturing plant at 229 Factory St. will be permanently shuttered.

"We are providing this notice to communicate an impending plant closure and mass layoff. As part of our strategic planning, the decision has been made to relocate operations to a new facility in Lebanon, Indiana," the company said in the letter to the state. The company said it will permanently close the LaPorte facility on Dec. 5.

Freudenberg Residential Filtration Technologies said layoff notices began to

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