COSHOCTON, Ohio (From the Coshocton Tribune) -- Corporate leaders of WestRock have confirmed the company's local plant on Third and Fourth streets will close 28 Nov. 2015, affecting 225 employees.

Tucker McNeil, director of communications for WestRock, said Coshocton's upcoming plant closing will affect 180 hourly workers and 45 salaried employees.

The former Rock-Tenn plant at 500 N. Fourth St. makes medium, part of the corrugated board in packaging. Company leaders decided to shut Coshocton's plant "to balance our overall supply of container board with our customers," McNeil said Friday night.

Company officials notified the Coshocton facility Friday of the upcoming closing.

"I think there will be an orderly closure. I don't have any information about the production schedule between now and then," McNeil said.

McNeil said the company has taken similar actions at other plants recently.

"Not today, but recently," he said.

Mayor Steve Mercer had announced the upcoming closure Friday afternoon after receiving a phone call from the company's corporate office in Norcross, Georgia.

"There's a lot to closing a plant," Mercer said, "so their winding-down operations will be full-tilt till then. You can't just close the doors and walk away."

Mercer said a corporate spokesperson told him WestRock is examining its operations companywide to meet the demand for its products, which serve the global packaging market.

"It is a very sad day for our community," said Dorothy Skowrunski, executive director of the Coshocton Port Authority. "WestRock is a major employer in our community, and this plant closing will have a ripple effect locally as well as regionally, affecting not just the plant and their workers but all the support services associated with the plant."

"I consider this a major hit to the entire community and to all the employees affected," Mercer said. "I certainly hope that in Coshocton's current employment-hiring status that those employees who want to stay in the local community can."

Mercer said he was surprised by Friday's announcement, given recent changes by the company.

The local plant has undergone two mergers in the past five years. The last one, announced in January of this year, eventually merged Rock-Tenn Co. and MeadWestvaco Corp. into WestRock, a $16 billion company, to compete with the International Paper Co.

In 2011, Rock-Tenn purchased the Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. for $3.5 billion. After that acquisition, the local plant was Rock-Tenn's 14th highest-producing plant.

Rock-Tenn was the 10th largest employer in Coshocton County in February 2014, according to the Coshocton Port Authority.