The cardinal brands building in the 200 block of S.W. Jackson Street in Topeka is shown. The company is putting its 100,000 square feet of warehouse and production space up for sale next year and is moving production lines to Mexico.

Topeka could lose nearly 1,000 jobs during the next 12 months, as longtime employment pillars Cardinal Brands, Payless ShoeSource and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas grapple with market realities and shed positions in the state’s capital city.

But 25 miles to the east, on Ninth Street in Lawrence, Ron Hall isn’t losing any sleep – despite having recently expanded his iconic Joe’s Bakery to Topeka, where the new downtown location draws customers from the three companies and beyond.

There’s plenty of business to be done in Topeka, he figures, and there will be operations to fill in the employment gaps left behind.

“I don’t worry about it at all,” said Hall, who hauls more than 200 dozen doughnuts each weekday to Topeka. “With the staff we have now, we have all the work we can do. I’ve been hiring people left and right.”

Recent announcements of upcoming job losses in Topeka are tempered by plans for employment gains in the city: a new call center is opening; a Frito-Lay plant is expanding; a longtime steel company is getting a new owner, with plans to grow.

And all of the announced job losses may not materialize. Blue Cross Blue Shield announced this week that it no longer was in the running for keeping a Medicare contract that it has been servicing for the past 41 years, putting 335 jobs in jeopardy by next summer; on Thursday, the company said it was hoping to subcontract the work – and transition its workers – for whichever company eventually lands the contract.

“Maybe they can sharpen their pencils by using some or all of our people,” spokesman Graham Bailey said Thursday. “But we’re certainly not telling our employees to hold their breath.”

Even if the potential job losses wouldn’t be expected to have a major direct effect in Lawrence – the affected Blue Cross Blue Shield subsidiary has one Lawrence resident on its payroll – the possibilities do raise eyebrows. More than 3,000 people commute from Lawrence to Topeka for work each day.

With Cardinal Brands putting its 100,000 square feet of warehouse and production space up for sale next year, and Payless having a distribution center that no longer will be in use, Topeka will have room to accommodate companies looking to relocate or expand.

“Topeka will have some inventory, and that’s where we have our biggest need,” said Jason Edmonds, chairman of the Lawrence-Douglas County Economic Development Board. “We’re paying attention to that.”

Phil Jones, vice president for human resources at Cardinal Brands, said his company decided to cut jobs in Topeka to boost efficiency and better serve customers by moving production lines from Topeka to Mexico, and by consolidating other operations in Independence, Mo.

While he doesn’t foresee much direct impact in Lawrence – more Cardinal employees commute from Topeka to Lawrence than the other way around – he’s confident Topeka will rebound from the latest round of cuts.

“I’ve met several times with the people from GO Topeka and their economic development efforts, and they are working very, very hard to bring more industry and jobs to Topeka,” he said. “We may have hit a few bumps in the road, but they’re working hard.”

Back at Joe’s Bakery, Hall is more concerned about adding a coffee bar inside his Lawrence shop than any job losses that might be cutting into his Topeka business.

“You know what I’m more mad about than Topeka losing jobs? It’s giving that KU game to Arrowhead Stadium,” Hall said of Kansas University’s decision to play football against Missouri in Kansas City, Mo. “That really hurts us. If we could have had that game, that’s $4,000 easy. For one day of 70-cent doughnuts, that’s a lot of money.”