HAMILTON — This city's once-dominant paper industry was dealt another blow Thursday when International Paper Co. announced plans to close the former Champion International Knightsbridge office complex, eliminating 350 jobs.

        The move, which had been feared by local officials since IP acquired rival Champion for $9.5 billion in June, caught some in the community off-guard.

        The announcement was a “surprise because they hadn't really given us a time line when they thought they would be making a decision,” said Mel L. Less, president and CEO of the Greater Hamilton Chamber of Commerce. “We were kind of expecting it, but hoping it wouldn't happen.”

        Hamilton City Council will meet today to consider what the loss of almost $1 million in annual income and property tax revenues will do to its budget.

        IP, the world's largest paper maker, this summer announced plans to separately sell the former Champion North B Street paper mill, which employs 800, and its own Beckett Paper plant, which employs 220 across the Great Miami River on Dayton Street.

        As part of its Champion International purchase, IP has said it would sell $3 billion in assets and save another $425 million by eliminating duplicate functions between the two companies. Thursday, IP also announced plans to sell its Masonite building products unit to Premdor Inc. for $523 million.

        IP isn't eliminating all the jobs at Knightsbridge, which employed about 540 white-collar workers before the acquisition.

        It will continue to employ 165 in functions such as inside sales, accounting and information technology support in either one location or at several sites somewhere in the Hamilton-Cincinnati area, said L.H. Puckett, senior vice president/coated and supercalendered papers. Another 25 Knightsbridge employees have been offered jobs elsewhere with IP.

        He said the phaseout of the Knightsbridge complex, once the world headquarters for Champion International, will hinge on efforts to find a buyer and find new space for the remaining workers.

        Mr. Puckett said IP will probably phase out all operations at Knightsbridge “by the end of next year, if we haven't found a suitable buyer.”

        Workers said the mood at the complex was quiet Thursday, with few people surprised at the decision.

        “I'm not happy about it, but I understand the reasoning behind it,” said Robert Ricks of Fairfield. The 51-year-old information technology manager has worked for the company for 26 years.

        Linda Burton said she's not sure what she'll do next.

        “I've pretty much watched the building grow. I've been here since 1967,” the senior accounting representative from Hamilton said. “It's just a shame because it's a beautiful building and there's a lot of wonderful people (here).”

        IP will offer severance benefits and assistance in finding new jobs to employees. Mr. Puckett said most of the employees have been given an idea of when their jobs will end; termination dates vary.

        A bigger issue for IP and city officials might be finding a buyer for the Knightsbridge complex.

        Located on 68 acres on the south side of Hamilton, near the Great Miami River, the facility covers about 374,000 square feet.

        Jack Goodwin, partner and director of development for Miller-Valentine Group, said, “They may have a difficult time finding a user for a 40-year-old facility. ... Employers want facilities near high-end residential areas with easy access to the Interstate. That's why areas like Blue Ash and the Fields-Ertel area (in Deerfield Township) have been so successful.”

        Ohio Casualty Corp., another longtime Hamilton employer that moved most of its operations to neighboring Fairfield, is still trying to find a buyer for its eight-story office building covering 400,000 square feet on the edge of downtown Hamilton.

        One possibility might be to subdivide the complex for a number of tenants.

        But Mr. Goodwin said that “depends on whether the complex is subdividable.”

        In the end, he said, IP and Hamilton officials may find the best use for the site would be to level the buildings and market the vacant land to a developer.

        IP said it worked with city and state officials on trying to retain the Knightsbridge complex and would continue that cooperation in trying to find a buyer.

        IP said it looked at a number of options for retaining the Knightsbridge complex, including moving some other IP functions into the site, leasing part of it to other tenants and selling the complex and leasing it back.

        “None of those combinations, frankly, made good business sense,” IP's Mr. Puckett said.

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