A backlash from work being outsourced to India has landed Lawrence’s I-70 Business Center a new company and 100 new jobs.

Officials with Home Oxygen 2-U confirmed Monday they had signed a deal to lease 17,000 square feet in the North Lawrence center previously known as Tanger Factory Outlet Mall.

The company’s new office will accept inbound telephone calls generated from cable TV advertisements for its main product, a device that allows people who use oxygen tanks for breathing assistance to refill their tanks in their homes.

Tamra Henson, customer service manager, said Home Oxygen 2-U had been running advertisements for about six months on networks such as Discovery Channel and Animal Planet.

The company has been contracting with an Omaha, Neb.,-based company to answer the telephone calls.

“But they started sending the calls to India, and the boss didn’t like that, plus the customers didn’t either,” Henson said.

Home Oxygen 2-U expects to have its Lawrence call center operational in the next 60-90 days. The company was lured to Lawrence by the availability of space in the center and the Lawrence-area work force.

Henson said about 85 of the jobs would be for customer-service people to answer phone calls; the other 15 employees would be administrative professionals.

Salary ranges for the jobs have not been determined, but Henson said they would be competitive with other area call center operations. According to the Kansas Department of Human Resources 2003 Kansas Wage Survey, the average wage for a customer service representative in Lawrence was $11.28 per hour.

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Henson said Home Oxygen 2-U is owned in part by William Kennedy, a Florida businessman who has made a fortune in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry.

Kennedy was founder and former CEO of Rotech Medical. In 1999, he sold Rotech, which also focused on selling respiratory assistance equipment, for a reported $900 million.

The company is the second new business to announce it is moving to the center in less than a week.

On Wednesday, Topeka-based home security firm Protection One announced plans to move the company’s corporate headquarters to the center. The move later this year is expected to bring with it 65 jobs with an average salary of $58,000 per year, with the anticipated creation of 15 new jobs in the next several years.

Owners of the former outlet mall — which include Lawrence businessmen Samih Staitieh, Bo Harris and Douglas County Commissioner Bob Johnson — said the announcements marked the center’s rebirth.

“In terms of jobs, these two announcements put us well ahead of when it was ever a mall,” Staitieh said.

With the two new businesses, the 88,000-square-foot center would be about 70 percent leased. Staitieh said the center’s location along I-70 and its large amount of parking were factors in landing both companies.

He also said the announcements were evidence that the investment group’s decision to convert the center from a retail area to an office center was sound.

“The partnership has been really patient and has not just done anything that has come along,” Staitieh said. “My dream, honest to goodness, is to have the center be a good entrance to the city and eventually tie it into the downtown area. We want it to provide a high employment base for the city.”