photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The printing plant and headquarters for Allen Press are shown in East Lawrence on Jan. 10, 2023.

A longtime Lawrence printing operation that gained renown across the country as a publisher of scientific journals and magazines will close by the end of October, according to the Minnesota-based company that bought it earlier this year.

The business formerly known as Allen Press will cease all printing and distribution operations at its East Lawrence facility in the coming weeks, according to a memo from Chris Kurtzman, chief executive officer of the CJK Group.

CJK in January purchased Allen Press and renamed the Lawrence operations Sheridan Kansas. At that time, the company touted its desire to have a printing and distribution operation in the central U.S.

In a memo on Tuesday, CJK said sales projections for the Lawrence location never materialized.

“Despite significant efforts to attract appropriate new work, the current sales level is insufficient to make the company financially viable,” Kurtzman wrote in the memo. “Though not our intent upon the acquisition of Allen Press, it is clear to us now that the current economic conditions and the overall levels of demand in the print market will not allow Sheridan to maintain that facility.”

Nearly all the employees stationed at the Lawrence facility will lose their jobs as part of the plant closure. The company plans to keep a content services division called KnowledgeWorks Global operating at the Lawrence facility, but that makes up a minority of the employees at the Lawrence location.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many employees the Lawrence operations had. Decades ago Allen Press routinely employed 300 or more people, but more recently the company has not been included on the list of largest employers compiled by economic development and city officials, indicating that the company has seen those employee levels drop.

In its memo, CJK said it was encouraging Lawrence employees who are losing their jobs to apply for open positions at other Sheridan locations. The company lists locations in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

CJK already had made cutbacks at the Lawrence facility, which is located just north of 11th and Delaware streets, near Hobbs Park, in East Lawrence. Several administrative and back office positions were moved from the Lawrence operation after the January purchase. But at that time, company officials were still talking positively about the printing and distribution capabilities of the Lawrence plant.

The closure, slated for Oct. 28, brings to an end one of the longer-running business operations in Lawrence. Allen Press got started in 1935, when a Lawrence printing apprentice by the name of Harold Allen purchased an existing print shop that was located in the basement of what is now the Merchants Pub & Plate building in downtown Lawrence.

By the 1960s, that business had morphed into a printing business that specialized in publishing scholastic journals — the type that University of Kansas professors and other academics used to publish their work.

Harold Allen’s sons — first Arly Allen and then Rand Allen — led the company after Harold Allen’s death in the late 1980s.

In his memo, CJK’s leader said the decision to close the Lawrence operations was a tough one.

“As you can imagine, this was a difficult decision to make, but one that is necessary in order to keep our business profitable and growing while providing the highest level of service to our customers,” Kurtzman said.