New bargain store opens on 23rd Street; speculation of a gun range plan; Kansas last in new construction report

Among the great business strategies are buy low, sell high, and always bet on the college students ruining the carpet in their apartments. A new Lawrence business is definitely counting on the second one.

In the spot that used to house Bargain Depot at 23rd and Harper, a new business called Factory Surplus has opened. Bargain Depot focused on everything from tools to fishing equipment to a device that sits in my garage with an unknown function but was such a steal that I couldn’t pass it up. Factory Surplus is more focused. It carries tile, laminate flooring, hardwood flooring, carpet squares and other such materials.

The company has locations in Grandview and Gladstone, Mo. Store manager Brick Davis said Lawrence was a natural choice for an expansion. The company was the flooring supplier for Bargain Depot, and sales of discount flooring in Lawrence were always good.

“With the renter market that is here, it makes a lot of sense for us to be here,” Davis said. “Renters are tough on flooring, and I think a lot of landlords are tired of replacing carpet.”

Tiles, laminate and hardwood hold up better, and those are the big sellers for the business. The Lawrence store will have 100 pallets of material on the showroom floor at pretty much all times. All of it will be sold at discount prices, Davis said. The company focuses on buying materials that are factory overruns, factory seconds, damaged box materials, or special bulk buys that drive the prices down.

“The whole key to our business is the price point that we offer,” Davis said. “People in this economy are still looking for a price break.”

In addition to the tile, which is the company’s biggest seller, it also has finished and unfinished hardwood flooring, travertine, natural stone and a few nonflooring items such as chair rails and other such renovation items.

According to the company’s website, the stores in Kansas City also stock televisions that they sell at discount prices. I didn’t see any televisions when I stopped by the Lawrence store (and normally my hand begins to reach for a bag of Doritos anytime I’m in a room with televisions, so I don’t think they were there). Davis said he doesn’t know of any plans for the company to begin selling TVs at the Lawrence store, but I’ll keep an eye out, nonetheless.

• You may want to keep an ear open at the 23rd and Harper location too. Factory Surplus occupies only about half of that building. Davis told me the company has been told that a gun range operator is interested in the other half of the building.

I don’t have additional details, but if you remember, Lawrence businessman Rick Sells has been interested in opening a shooting range and firearms supply store. He unsuccessfully tried to win city approval for a building near 31st and Haskell. He then said he was focusing on a spot in The Malls Shopping Center at 23rd and Louisiana, but to date that hasn’t materialized. Perhaps he is looking at this location now, or perhaps there is someone else also looking to get into the business. I’ll let you know if I hear more.

In other news and notes from around town:

• Kansas is last in a new report about construction activity. According to figures compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Kansas has lost more construction jobs from July 2015 to July 2016 than any other state in the country.

The total number of construction workers is down by 4,400 people, according to the figures. That has far outpaced the 2,900 job losses in North Dakota, which has seen a bust in its boom-bust oil economy.

On a percentage basis, Kansas saw a 7.3 percent decline in construction jobs for the year. That ranked 49th out of all the states and the District of Columbia. The numbers didn’t indicate that the situation was improving. Kansas lost 500 construction jobs for the month.

The report also is a little tough to take because it shows many other states in the region are adding construction jobs, some at tremendous paces. In fact, three of the states in our region were in the top 10. Here’s a look:

• Iowa: Rank: No. 1; 90,300 construction jobs, up 16.5 percent

• Colorado: Rank: No. 4; 164,100 construction jobs, up 10.9 percent

• Oklahoma: Rank: No. 8; 83,900 construction jobs, up 7.7 percent

• Nebraska: Rank: No. 32; 50,400 construction jobs, up 1.0 percent

• Missouri: Rank: No. 34; 114,100 construction jobs, up 0.8 percent

• Kansas: Rank: No. 49; 56,000 construction jobs, down 7.3 percent

The Associated General Contractors of America takes the federal statistics and compiles them in a report each month. Leaders with the Kansas Contractors Association have seized on this month’s report and are pointing to it as evidence that Gov. Sam Brownback’s decision to take funds from the state highway program to balance the budget is having a negative impact on construction jobs in the state. The construction jobs measured include everything from road builders to home builders.

I’ll leave it to others to draw their own conclusions about what has caused the numbers — political decisions or just a normal downturn in a cyclical industry. It would only be fair to note that these state rankings fluctuate greatly. For instance, I went back and looked at the report that measured construction jobs from July 2014 to July 2015, and Kansas was doing exceedingly well — construction job totals were up 8.1 percent, which was the fifth highest growth rate in the country.

Regardless, it does appear that the construction industry is one that is holding back the overall Kansas economy at the moment. According to state figures, it has seen the largest number of job losses of any industry in the state during the past 12 months.