The Envelope Products headquarters will remain here but the two plants will close by late November. The envelope plant currently manufactures a variety of products for the direct mail, bill-and-return and financial markets. The flexible packaging plant makes specialized, non-mailing consumer packaging envelopes. Together, they employ 375 employees of which the company expects to eliminate approximately 130 positions.

The company says that the consolidation of the facilities is a response to the "ongoing evolution of the envelope products marketplace." The two plants' presence in Springfield began more than a century ago, and they became part of Westvaco Corp. in 1960.

Closing the plants will result in MeadWestvaco incurring a pretax charge of approximately $4 million during the third quarter. This charge is associated with employee restructuring benefit payments, asset write-downs and other closure-related expenses.

MeadWestvaco was formed in January 2002 by the merger of Westvaco Corp. and The Mead Corp. The Stamford, CT-based company has annual sales of $8 billion and is a global producer of packaging, coated and specialty papers, consumer and office products and specialty chemicals. The company operates in 33 countries and employs over 30,000 people worldwide.