A manufacturing company plans to shut down its auto parts plant in Alabama by March, according to a notice filed with the state.

Nitto Inc. will lay off 56 employees as its manufacturing facility in Jasper closes, the company said in a WARN notice published this week by the Alabama Department of Commerce. The plant will close by March 7, the notice said.

The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Nitto Inc. is the American subsidiary of Japanese company Nitto Denko Corporation. The Jasper plant, a 53,000 square-foot manufacturing facility that’s operated since 2003, is in the city’s Bevill Industrial Park, according to its website. The Jasper Industrial Development Board lists the company as the city’s ninth largest employer.

Green Suttles, executive director for the Jasper Industrial Development Board, said that the company offered severance to employees and is working with the board to connect employees with the local career center.

“Nitto Denko has treated their people spectacularly in my opinion,” he said in an interview with AL.com. “I was very pleased with the company working hard to communicate with their people.”

Suttles said the company informed the city that the shutdown was happening because the company is consolidating its southern auto plants into one location in Kentucky. Nitto is also closing its Ohio plant and laying off most of its employees there.

“That’s their business,” Suttles said. “That’s what they’re doing, but everybody but Kentucky lost.”

Suttles said that Bevill State Community College is already in talks to buy the site from Nitto, and plans to turn it into a training center as part of a plan with Alabama Power to create the Alabama Energy Infrastructure Training Center and Network in the industrial park, expanding on its HVAC workforce development program.

AL.com has reached out to Bevill State for comment.

“It’s my understanding that that’s going forward,” he said. “I hate losing the 50 jobs, and I hate losing the industrial building, as Alabama needs more industrial space. But I’m getting a whole lot more out of the deal.”

Suttles added that many of Jasper’s Nitto employees already have new jobs lined up.

“Jasper is going to absorb virtually all the people that are being displaced,” Suttles said. “I’m extremely optimistic. It’s not going to be a bloodbath at all. And at the end of the day, when the dust settles, we’re going to be a lot better off.”