Hooker Furniture gave up its last holdout against imports Wednesday, announcing its one remaining wood furniture plant will close in March.

Hooker will become fully focused on marketing the imported furniture that wiped out demand for the products its factories once made.

The plant’s 280 employees will receive severance packages but no offers of employment with Hooker’s other operations. Those employees represent 27 percent of the company’s total work force, Hooker officials said.

“It’s sad to see Hooker’s wood furniture manufacturing era come to an end,” said Paul Toms Jr., chairman and chief executive officer.

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” said U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Rocky Mount.

“They had been a good employer for many years in Martinsville and this will be a negative impact on manufacturing in our area,” Goode said.

H.G. Vaughn, chairman of the Henry County Board of Supervisors, said the closing of the plant could have a trickle-down effect on other sectors of the local economy, cut into tax revenues for the city of Martinsville and hurt businesses that serve as suppliers to the manufacturing plant.

“The fallout effect is hard to measure,” he said.

Vaughn also said the loss in tax revenue will further hurt a city already beset by financial woes and struggling to make up a budget shortfall. “Years ago we were fat and happy with a surplus of manufacturing jobs and failed to diversify our industries,” Vaughn said. “Now, we’re paying for it.”

Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Martinsville, said the Hooker closing had been rumored for several months but he’d “kind of hoped it was not true.”

“While the demise of the textile industry was fast and furious, the furniture industry has managed to hang on, but still they were under tremendous pressure from foreign imports, and so the close of the Hooker plant comes as a surprise, not a shock,” Armstrong said.

Educating the work force in Martinsville and Henry County is a key to the region’s future, Armstrong said.

“The Hooker plant closing does underscore the absolute need for the new college and for us to press on with our efforts to increase the education of our folks,” Armstrong said.

The New College Institute, in classes taught at Patrick Henry Community College and in Martinsville, helps students earn degrees in criminal justice, business administration, health and education programs.

The classes started last fall and are provided through Longwood University, Radford University, Averett University, Ferrum College and the University of Virginia.

Jim McMillian of the Henry Board of Supervisors said he hoped some of the laid-off workers will find jobs at the new furniture manufacturing plant opening up in Danville.

More than 700 jobs will come to Danville when IKEA, a Swedish company, opens a factory in 2008.

“It is strange that Hooker has to do its business in China and IKEA, a Swedish furniture company, is building a plant in Danville,” McMillian said.

Toms said, “We believe it is in the best long-term interest of our shareholders, customers and remaining employees to focus on what we do well.”

Hooker is one of the 10 largest publicly traded furniture providers, based on shipments to retailers in 2005.

“Our transition to a marketing, logistics and global sourcing business model for wood and metal furniture is now complete,” Toms said.

Hooker has closed several plants in recent years, the most recent of which occurred in August in Roanoke, erasing 275 jobs there.

A Bedford company, Frank Chervan Inc., acquired the Roanoke plant and hired a few of those workers in October.

Hooker stock closed at $15.31 in trading Wednesday, up 1 cent on the Nasdaq exchange. Its 52-week range is $13.52 to $20.95.

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