Local employer seeking to add about 400 employees; longtime liquor store to close; update on Farmer fallout and City Hall

I’m getting word that one of Lawrence’s larger employers is seeking to add about 400 new employees in the next several weeks.

General Dynamics is looking to add about 400 employees to its call center operations in the East Hills Business Park, according to a source with good knowledge of General Dynamics’ operations. The company — which runs a customer service center that answers the telephones for several large government programs — wants to fill the positions within the next three weeks.

I’m told the jobs will pay about $12.95 an hour and will include benefits. About 230 of the positions will be part time, while the remainder will be full-time positions. I believe the majority of the positions are customer service representatives, but the company has other positions open as well. Its website shows analysts, software engineers, human resource positions and several others.

I’ve got a call into the folks at General Dynamics Information Technology division, but I haven’t heard back. The company is notoriously tight-lipped. (As tight-lipped as they are, you would think their company’s history is in making secret weapon systems for the military.) But 400 new positions, even if some are part time and likely seasonal, is a fairly big hire in Lawrence, so I wanted to pass it along.

For those of you still confused about General Dynamics’ presence in Lawrence, the company is the successor of Pearson Government Solutions, which was a long time call center in Lawrence. The company is a major employer in Lawrence. Until Hallmark’s recent realignment, which added jobs to its Lawrence production plant, General Dynamics was the largest private employer in the city. With these new jobs, it may be again.

I think the company’s employment totals have fluctuated quite a bit, but at one point it had about 1,500 employees at its East Hills Business Park facilities.

In other news and notes from around town:

• If your Friday evening routine involves stopping off at Jensen’s Liquor — the longtime store at 620 W. Ninth St. — you’ll soon need to find a new way to quench your thirst.

Jeff Jensen, owner of the store, has confirmed he’s shutting the business down after 24 years of operation. The reason? “Having three liquor stores within 200 yards of each other has a little bit to do with it,” Jensen said. “It is a pretty competitive scene.”

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The liquor stores are right at the base of the Kansas University campus, but try as they might, keeping all three of those stores afloat is too big of a chore even for KU students.

“I have had my distributors tell me that they think it is the only place in Kansas that has three liquor stores in basically a single block,” Jensen said.

Jensen said the business model for a successful liquor store also has changed significantly. He said the idea of a small neighborhood liquor store is losing out to the idea of larger liquor stores that can stock the wide variety of craft beers, vodkas and other spirits.

“There has just been an explosion of products in the liquor industry,” Jensen said. “You have to have more offerings to be competitive. I have 10 beer doors (coolers), and that was plenty when I opened. One distributor told me a new store in Kansas City has 52, and they are not sure that will be enough.”

(Geez, and my wife is giving me a hard time about having a measly dozen coolers in the house?)

As for a timeline for closing, Jensen said he’ll likely shut down in the next two to three weeks.

Jensen leases the building, and said he hasn’t heard any news of another business that is coming in to take his place.

“I think it is probably safe to say it won’t be another liquor store,” he said.

• A quick update on a city issue from yesterday’s column. I opined about how the city may want to consider whether it needs to do any further reviews following the latest news about former Mayor Jeremy Farmer now that the Just Food board is pursuing criminal charges against Farmer related to his alleged financial misdeeds at the nonprofit food bank.

I had a chance to chat with interim City Manager Diane Stoddard, and she believes the city has a good understanding of any exposure the city may have had related to Farmer’s time on the commission.

As we’ve previously reported, the city already has conducted a review of Farmer’s use of a city credit card, and has requested and received about $1,100 in reimbursements for expenses that city staff deemed were not related to city business.

Stoddard told me that was the area where the city was most exposed to direct spending by Farmer. Other spending actions by Farmer were made as part of the standard City Commission process that requires three votes to move forward.

My impression, at this point, is the city doesn’t plan to conduct any further reviews related to Farmer and his tenure on the commission. Granted, it may be difficult for the city really to determine much at this point. And I do believe the city has much better financial controls than Just Food did. Abuse of power, though, goes beyond purely financial matters.