About the factory
› Site: Located on part of a 115-acre tract in Adairsville, Ga.› Size: 600,000 square feet of production, recycling and warehouse space› Cost: $85 million› Product: Carpet tile for Shaw’s Patcraft, Philadelphia Commercial and Shaw Contract brands› Jobs: 170 at present with plans to grow to 500 at full capacitySource: Shaw Industries Group
ADAIRSVILLE, Ga. - The biggest maker of carpet tile in North America is ready to get larger.
Shaw Industries Group on Thursday took the wraps off a new $85 million plant here that already employs 170 people and will create about 500 jobs when the factory reaches full capacity producing carpet tile.
"It's the growth part of the commercial carpet business," said Shaw Chairman and Chief Executive Vance Bell in an interview at an open house at the mammoth plant in Bartow County. "It's a good business."
Bell said the product that the plant has begun making is innovative in terms of design features, dimensions and patterns.
"It opens up possibilities for designers in commercial settings," he said, adding that carpet tile is easily put down and taken up in open-office environments.
Jim Andrews, Dalton, Ga.-based Shaw's director of contract manufacturing, compared the opening of the new plant with the month of December and the Christmas holiday.
"December is a time of anticipation," he told about 100 people at the open house. "It's a great business for us to be in. [The plant] is getting ready for the future. It's built to continue to grow."
Andrews said the 600,000-square-foot plant, which was built by Chattanooga-based EMJ Corp., sits on just a portion of the 115-acre tract that Shaw owns and which was graded for future expansion.
Already, Shaw Industries has nine facilities in Bartow County, located about 60 miles south of Chattanooga, with 3,200 employees. One of those nine is another carpet tile plant in nearby Cartersville, Ga. Shaw also has a carpet tile facility in Nantong, China, to service the Asia-Pacific market.
Bell said the new factory will allow Shaw to innovate across its broad portfolio of products, which include carpet, hardwood, laminate, synthetic turf along with resilient, tile and stone flooring offerings for residential and commercial spaces.
He said the "state-of-the-art" facility, which provides added production and recycling capability for the company's Patcraft, Philadelphia Commercial and Shaw Contract brands, shows "great promise of the future."
Bell said he's upbeat about 2017 for the company that's a subsidiary of billionaire investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
"Business is getting better," he said, adding that company revenues are slated to finish 2016 at about the $5 billion mark.
New home sales are rising and slated to ramp up over the next several years, the company CEO said, and commercial sales are good.
Also, in October, Shaw Industries entered into an agreement to purchase USFloors, which expands and complements Shaw's status as a leader in the luxury vinyl tile (LVT) and hard surface markets.
USFloors makes wood-plastic composite flooring in the LVT category, as well as cork, bamboo and hardwood products. The transaction is expected to close this quarter.
"It's a business that's growing rapidly," Bell said, noting that the planned acquisition puts Shaw "more strongly in a leadership position."
Asked about President-elect Donald Trump, the chief executive said it's a positive for the American economy that the election is over.
"There was a pause," he said. "People were waiting to see what would happen."
Bell said he believes a Trump administration probably will be more business friendly and there will be "less onerous regulation," which will create confidence and spur more investment and hiring.
Brenda Knowles, who oversees Shaw's commercial marketing and product development, said investments such as the new plant and others are the foundation for the company's success moving ahead.
"Continued innovation will drive us forward," she said. "It will help us identify new products which are as yet unidentified."
Paul Wells, EMJ's superintendent of construction, said it took about 12 months to build the plant.
"Shaw knows what they want in construction. They're excellent in communicating," he said.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.