After today, Emporia has to find another Lenze.
Lenze Corp. closed its Emporia plant today after 10 years in business. The company has shifted operations to its U.S. company headquarters in Uxbridge, Mass., to simplify its logistics.
The move puts the 30,000 square-foot building back in the hands of the Regional Development Association of East Central Kansas, the industrial recruiter that first brought Lenze to town. RDA chairman Jeff Longbine said the agency would look for another industry to fill the spot and that he didn’t consider the building a hard sell.
“It’s a building I think has got a lot of uses,” Longbine said. “It probably won’t take a huge amount of remodeling.”
The RDA is listing the plant on the Internet.
“Anymore, the Internet is almost the quickest way people search for a site anymore,” RDA president Kent Heermann said “It’s almost instant gratification.”
Heermann said a company walked through the plant on Feb. 28 to consider the site. It later decided to look elsewhere.
The plant sits on 10 acres of land, which leaves room for expansion, he said.
“Hopefully, we can get the word out and somebody in in pretty short order,” Heermann said.
The plant recently qualified for Trade Adjustment Assistance, a federal program that offers more money for re-training to the roughly 30 laid-off employees. TAA comes into play when workers lose their jobs or see their pay cut due to increased imports.
Those needing information on TAA can contact the Workforce Development Center at 342-3355.
Lenze will maintain a small office on Commercial Street, where four of the former plant workers will handle customer support and technical assistance. General manager Gene Wood said the company made an open offer to be considered for jobs in Massachusetts, but no one took them up on it.
sciguy (anonymous) says...
I wonder how many companies look at Emporia and the kinds of companies it seems to prefer, and decide to look elsewhere because of the perceived (and real) lack of a technologically savvy workforce?
We lose a manufacturing plant, and the immediate talk of the town is "maybe we can get a retail store" or "lets find another low-tech manufacturing company." That's not exactly reaching for the stars...or even reaching for the early 21st century.
There is nothing WRONG with retail and old-tech manufacturing, but why must these be our only options?
Maybe if we'd spend more time recruiting high-tech companies, instead of exclusively low-tech manufacturing/retail, we would open the doors to some new (for Emporia) industries.
It would have the side benefit of giving some of our technologically capable high school and college graduates the possibility of finding a job here. As it is, their only option is to leave.
April 30, 2007 at 2:53 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )