Norwich — The last remnant of Greeneville's rich, historic Shetucket River manufacturing heritage is closing its doors and will be sold at auction Wednesday morning.

Atlantic Packaging Corp., which opened in 1917, succumbed to global competition, declining sales and the high costs of manufacturing, company partner Steve Vizoukis said Tuesday, as dozens of interested parties combed through the expansive mill complex inspecting massive machines, equipment and antique solid wood office furniture.

“It's a sad day,” Vizoukis said, sitting at an empty desk in his North Main Street office. “We've been in business for 100 years in one form or another.”

Atlantic Packaging started downsizing its cardboard box manufacturing in September and ceased operations in October, Vizoukis said. Most of the 30 workers have left and found other jobs, he said. But several are expected to be unemployed with the closure. A small staff remained at the plant to help the auction company, Aaron Posnik Auctioneers, with the preview Tuesday and auction Wednesday.

More than three dozen interested parties toured the mill complex Tuesday during the daylong pre-auction inspection period. The land and buildings will be auctioned at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the premises and online. Equipment will be sold throughout the day.

The property in total has 7.25 acres of land with two free-standing buildings and eight connected manufacturing and warehouse buildings. A 12,180-square-foot office building at 387 N. Main St. is the front building, with the mill complex to the rear across the Providence & Worcester freight rail tracks.

The complex has a total assessed real estate value of $1.12 million in city tax records, plus a personal property assessment of $341,190. Taxes are up to date on the property.

Vizoukis said the owners hope the property sells to another manufacturing company, or an industrial warehouse firm. But if the bids do not meet their minimum goal, which he did not disclose, the owners would try to market the building after the auction.

“We're not going to give it away,” Vizoukis said.

Vizoukis praised his workers, and said the dedicated, skilled workforce kept the company going with aging equipment. Their skill, he said, made up for the slower, older machines the company couldn't afford to replace.

“My sadness is that we couldn't continue the business for those people,” Vizoukis said.

Plant manager Jeff Blanchard of Voluntown is one of the few remaining employees. Blanchard has worked at Atlantic Packaging for the past six years, and for him the closure is sadly familiar. He worked at the Caraustar box manufacturer in Versailles, which also closed.

“It's a sign of the times,” Blanchard said. “It's disappointing, because there were a lot of good people here.”

Blanchard said he has other job offers, which would require travel. Or he might go back to school to get his engineering degree, a personal goal.

Vizoukis said the company's downfall can be traced to the Great Recession, when a large customer owing Atlantic Packaging $1 million went bankrupt in 2010. “We had a hard time recovering from that,” he said.

Then another large U.S. customer switched to a Chinese manufacturer. And although one big customer came back to Atlantic Packaging early this year, it was only for one large order that carried the company into the fall but not beyond, Vizoukis said.

“We saw we didn't have enough sales to sustain the manufacturing base,” he said.

But Vizoukis and business partners Jim Brown, Doreen Sylvestre and Robert Chandler were able to pay most creditors, and now, he said, they just have to pay off the bank. He declined to say the remaining company debt total. “We tried not to hurt anybody,” he said.

While Vizoukis did not want to dwell on the politics of the recent national election, he said sometimes, globalization does hurt U.S. manufacturers, especially small businesses. The cost of doing business in Connecticut — with high energy costs, health care costs and regulations — also hurt.

But Vizoukis said the operation was able to withstand those costs, and also invested big money to keep up the old mill complex, until sales dropped.

“The city and (Norwich Public Utilities) have done a number of things to try to help the struggling business for a few years,” Norwich Community Development Corp. President Robert Mills said. “The problem is well beyond resources available at the local level.”

Mills said the “best track” at this point is to help any prospective buyer move into the mill complex.

City Historian Dale Plummer also expressed sadness at the closure and pending auction. Plummer said Atlantic Packaging opened in 1917, but it moved into one former cotton mill building that dates back to about 1842 along the Shetucket River. Atlantic then expanded on the complex over the years. Greeneville was a dynamic mill village in its heyday, Plummer said.

“Different products: paper, textiles and railroad cars were made in Greeneville,” Plummer said. “There was an ax handle manufacturer. It was a really fascinating area. It was not just dominated by one industrial use. It was a miniature version of an industrial city, with diversified industry.”

c.bessette@theday.com