This composite image from promotional materials shows a logo and rendering of Lawrence Venture Park.

Home improvement retailer Menards has indefinitely delayed a project to build a new manufacturing plant and distribution center that would employ up to 150 people in Lawrence, city officials said Friday.

“At this time, the project has been placed on hold,” City Manager Tom Markus said when asked for an update on the much-anticipated project, which was scheduled to be the first tenant for the city’s VenturePark business park in eastern Lawrence.

Markus said Menards officials have not been able to tell the city when the project may get started. Markus said his understanding is the decision to delay the Lawrence project was part of a larger companywide decision to delay projects that had not yet broken ground.

“It is an ownership decision, and it really doesn’t have anything to do with the city, or the company’s relationship with the city,” Markus said. “We’re open to resuming the project, and we hope that will be the case.”

An attempt to reach a spokesman for Wisconsin-based Menards was not successful on Friday afternoon.

City commissioners in January unanimously approved $2.3 million in incentives for the project. As part of the deal, Menards would purchase about 90 acres of the approximately 220-acre Lawrence VenturePark, which is the new business park on the site of the former Farmland Industries fertilizer plant. Menards was scheduled to construct a facility that would build roof trusses, stone blocks and distribute other products to Menards retail stores in the region. The company said the facility was expected to have 100 to 150 full-time jobs.

Markus said ownership of the land has not been transferred to Menards. The city continues to own the property.

Larry McElwain, president and CEO of the Lawrence chamber of commerce, said he still believes the project can happen in Lawrence.

“I’m confident,” McElwain said. “I’m not pessimistic in any way. I’m impatient, but I’m not pessimistic.”

McElwain said the chamber has been told by Menards that the project is still viable, and could be restarted within 30 days, or it could be much longer. McElwain said his understanding is the company was delaying projects across the country that had not yet broken ground, but he said he didn’t know why the company had decided to delay the projects.

McElwain said he thought city and county officials had done everything they could do to ensure success of the project.

“I don’t see any hurdles once the project is ready to move forward,” McElwain said. “Once the project is ready to move forward, I think everything is in place to move forward. The community has provided a very viable incentive package.”

Markus also said he thought the process could be restarted quickly to get the project moving again, if the company so chooses. Lawrence Mayor Mike Amyx said he also remained hopeful other businesses would be locating in VenturePark in the future.

“It is an employment center, and we expect to be able to use that land for new businesses,” Amyx said. “Obviously, Menards would be the perfect first tenant for that park. This slows us down a little bit, but we continue to hope for the best.”

City officials, at some point, will have to decide how long to wait for Menards. Since the city still owns the land, it can market it to other potential business park tenants. McElwain said thus far other prospects looking at the VenturePark development have been interested in the smaller lots, not the large Menards site. But he said the Menards parcel could be put back into play.

“We haven’t had to cross that bridge yet,” McElwain said. “If somebody came along and said they wanted it, we would call Menards and ask them to give us a timeline.”

News of the indefinite delays comes shortly after chamber officials announced that Brady Pollington, the day-to-day leader of the community’s economic development programs, had suddenly resigned. Officials did not provide more details about Pollington’s departure, but both Markus and McElwain said the departure was totally unrelated to the Menards project.

“I can say with 100 percent assurance that this has nothing to do with any changes at the chamber of commerce,” Markus said.