DALTON, Ga. — Since being founded by carpet industry veteran Robert E. “Bob” Shaw in 2009, Engineered Floors has grown not just in steps but in giant leaps. And on Tuesday, the carpet company announced another big leap.

The company has broken ground on a carpet tile manufacturing facility in south Whitfield County. The initial phase of the plant, expected to open in January 2018, will total 520,000 square feet. A company spokesman could not immediately say how many people the plant will employ. 

Carl Campbell, executive director of the Dalton-Whitfield Joint Development Authority, said the plant is located in the far south of Whitfield County on Old Dixie Highway, just south of Gaz Road.

“This plant is a sign of continued growth and marks the beginning of a new era for Engineered Floors,” said James Lesslie, executive vice president of sales and marketing, in a press release. “As the popularity of modular carpet tile has grown … Engineered Floors is answering this need with a new state-of-the-art facility.”

Dave Foster, who has covered the floorcovering industry for many years, calls carpet tile a “very, very popular product.”

“It’s probably pushing half of the carpet industry at this point in time,” he said. “And I think what they (Engineered Floors) are saying is that in the future it is probably going to be an even greater percentage.”

Engineered Floors has expanded rapidly since its founding in 2009. It currently employs some 2,800 people in a 650,000-square-foot facility in Calhoun and an 800,000-square-foot facility on South Dug Gap Road in Dalton. Two years ago, it acquired Dalton-based J+J Flooring, which it runs as a separate division.

Shaw is the co-founder and was the longtime head of Shaw Industries, which was sold to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in 2001. He retired from Shaw in September of 2006.