Atlanta & Local Affairs
Cardinal Glass Industries plans to permanently close its glass plant in Statesboro, a move that will affect all 115 workers at the site, according to a notice filed with Georgia’s state WARN system.
The notice, Georgia WARN ID GA202600021, lists the plant at 8373 Zell Miller Parkway in Bulloch County. It lists the action as a permanent closure. It gives a first separation date of December 6, 2026, and a second of June 30, 2027. Affected positions are listed as “Production, Leadership, Support” and “All Positions.” No union represents the affected employees.
What the notice says
A letter attached to the filing, dated October 6 and addressed to the Georgia Department of Labor’s Rapid Response Unit, gives notice of “a planned plant closure by Cardinal Glass Industries, Inc. and Cardinal LG Company” of the Statesboro facility. Cardinal LG is the company’s laminated-glass business, based in Ocala, Florida.
The letter says “certain employees may be considered for transfer opportunities at other Cardinal locations” and that employees “do not possess bumping rights,” meaning they cannot displace workers in other positions. It does not give a reason for the closure.
On the state form, Cardinal marked the closure as trade-affected. That field is the employer’s own designation, and it often signals an employer is linking a closure at least partly to foreign trade. It is not a government finding, and the company’s letter does not explain it.
A plant that was saved once before
The plant has faced closure before. Apogee Enterprises, which operated it as part of its Viracon architectural-glass business, announced in 2021 that it would close the Statesboro facility. Apogee instead sold the plant’s assets to Cardinal LG Company in an agreement signed October 17, 2021, according to an Apogee SEC filing.
At the time, Cardinal said it planned to “repurpose the facility to support its residential glass business,” according to the Statesboro Herald. The paper reported that Apogee’s closure plan would have cost about 200 jobs and that Cardinal kept about 175 workers when it took over. In 2022, the plant’s human resources manager told the paper she could see employment reaching 400 once improvements were complete. The WARN notice now lists 115 employees at the worksite.
Why it matters for the region
The closure removes a manufacturing employer from Bulloch County, where the unemployment rate was 3.4% in August, according to preliminary, not seasonally adjusted Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The county had about 37,700 people employed.
What to watch: whether Cardinal explains the closure, how many workers take transfers to other Cardinal plants, and what rapid-response services the state offers before the first separations in December.
Sources
- Technical College System of Georgia, Approved Public WARN Notices, GA WARN ID GA202600021 (Cardinal Glass Industries), with attached notice letter dated October 6, 2026. https://www.tcsg.edu/warn-public-view/entry/91512/
- Apogee Enterprises, Form 8-K, October 18, 2021 (asset purchase agreement with Cardinal LG Company). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/6845/000119312521301098/d245403d8k.htm
- Statesboro Herald, “Viracon plant sold; will stay open,” October 2021. https://www.statesboroherald.com/local/viracon-plant-sold-will-stay-open/
- Statesboro Herald, “Cardinal Glass has big plans for Statesboro plant,” February 2022. https://www.statesboroherald.com/local/cardinal-glass-has-big-plans-statesboro-plant/
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Bulloch County, Georgia, series LAUCN130310000000003 (August 2026, preliminary). https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LAUCN130310000000003
Featured photo: A Cardinal Glass Industries plant in Tomah, Wisconsin, seen from the air in 2023. Representative image of the company; not the Statesboro, Georgia, plant. Photo: Wikideas1, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0). Cropped from the original.
