Closing of Simpson Dura-Vent’s plant in Warren County will be completed by the end of March, sooner than the original time given by company executives when the plant announced the shutdown nearly a year ago.

About 103 production employees were cut from the California-based company’s payroll Dec. 23 and had worked their last day Dec. 31, CEO Stephen Eberhard said Monday.

About 20 employees will remain at the 301,000-square-foot facility while the home venting and chimney manufacturer moves equipment to its Vacaville, Calif., headquarters, Eberhard said.

The warehouse at Ceres Research and Industrial Interplex is listed for sale, the results of which will determine how long employees remain at the plant, Eberhard said.

That potential offer and those for warehouses owned by auto parts suppliers CalsonicKansei and Yorozu, which have also shut down, figure to drive what little large-scale economic development there is in the area in 2009.

“We’re still garnering interest there,” Warren County Port Commission executive director Wayne Mansfield said, adding leads on potential business development from the Mississippi Development Authority have slowed down in recent weeks as companies wait to see how the Obama administration’s economic stimulus plan takes shape.

The commission also still has a warehouse with an unfinished interior for sale, built on speculation that an industrial recruit might like to have a ready-made structure. A deal announced in 2008 by the U.S. arm of an Australian “green home” builder to move into that 64,000 square-foot building has not materialized. MDA officials said in December the project is still active.

Simpson Dura-Vent announced in January 2008 it would close its plant at Ceres over a 24-month period due to falling demand stemming from the nationwide housing construction collapse. In its financial report for the third quarter of the year, the company reported sales up just 1.2 percent nationwide, with losses in the West and Southeast the heaviest. In the company’s venting products division, which operated in Warren County, a 32.5 percent increase in sales volume was attributed to price increases that averaged 4.7 percent.

Job losses at the Warren County plant that opened in the late 1990s and once employed about 400 people are the latest in a string of local labor shorts. The bulk of those affected the gaming and timber industries, as well as at Yorozu. LeTourneau Technologies had a layoff last week.

At International Paper, most workers returned to the job at the company’s Vicksburg Mill Jan. 5 after a lack of orders forced a temporary shutdown in mid-December.

IP spokesman Helen Hawkins said 298 workers are employed at the Mississippi 3 facility. The plant had also shut down for six months following the May 3 explosion at its recovery boiler.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com.