Updated: JCPenney's Warehouse Reconfiguration to Result in the Elimination of 150 Positions in Town

JCPenney says that changes at its massive on Tolland Turnpike could cost as many as 150 of the 900 employees at the facility their jobs.

“As part of a reconfiguration of our whole supply chain, this facility is going to be reconfigured,” Tim Lyons, a spokesman for the retail chain, told Manchester Patch Tuesday.

Lyons said that the retailer plans to begin winding down operations of its JCPenney.com division at the Manchester facility, which had been one of four warehouse distribution centers for online purchases across the country. Lyons said JCPenney will now only have three such online warehouse distribution hubs.

Beginning in October, the approximately 500 employees that work in Manchester's online division will begin to be shifted over into the center’s expanding furniture distribution and store distribution centers. 

"It’s simply that we are running the business more efficiently and with leaner inventories, so we don’t need as much warehouse capacity as in the past," Lyons said of the retailer's online operations, which he said is one of JCPenney's "strongest growth areas."

Lyons said that when the reconfiguration is complete, approximately 150 jobs at the logistics and distribution center would have been eliminated as a result of the loss of the Manchester online distribution center. 

“We will have parts of the facility that are going to expand at the same time that jcpenney.com (in Manchester) will be discontinued,” Lyons said. “That will happen over the next several months, so the people whose jobs are being eliminated with the .com side of the building will be able to apply for jobs in the parts that are expanding.”

Manchester Mayor Louis Spadaccini said that he was informed about the reconfiguration from a JCPenney representative Friday, and that although he was not pleased with the layoffs called for under it, he was glad that JCPenney wasn’t shutting down its Manchester distribution center completely.

“It’s not good news, but it’s better news than we were hearing rumors of,” Spadaccini said. “There were rumors that they were considering closing the facility altogether.”

JCPenney was the fourth largest taxpayer on the town’s 2010 Grand List with a total taxable value of $58,014,720.

The reconfiguration and employee reductions at JCPenney’s distribution facility will be the third major blow to employers in Manchester in recent months. In February, announced that it would be closing its Manchester store as part of a Chapter 11 filing, and will result in the elimination of 93 positions in town.

Lyons said that the reconfiguration of the Manchester distribution center was part of a broad scale reconfiguration of JCPenney’s nationwide distribution network that will see the retailer reduce its supply chain locations from 18 to 13, although he said the Manchester distribution center remained part of the company’s long-term plans.

“We are transforming our supply chain, like the rest of our organization, to support our business at an enterprise-wide level, versus managing our business by shopping channel, such as catalog, JCPenney.com, and stores. As a result, we will be moving from 18 supply chain locations to 13 over the next 24 months, which will include the expansion of seven facilities and the closing of five. While the Manchester center will no longer support our JCPenney.com business, it remains a large and important component of our network." 

Lyons said that JCPenney will continue to pay the employees who are being transferred over during the reconfiguration, while those whose jobs would be eliminated would be offered severance packages.