DALTON, GA -- One of Dalton’s best known carpet manufacturers has filed for chapter eleven bankruptcy. Beaulieu Group is reorganizing and has not announced any shutdowns or layoffs. But it raises questions about the health of the industry in a city dependent on that industry.
Dalton’s carpet industry has always been closely tied to the homebuilding industry. And homebuilding has boomed for the better part of a decade.
Yet industry insiders say there’s a reason Beaulieu has filed for bankruptcy. People building houses no longer put carpet in them like they used to.
“Carpet is a smaller percentage of the floor covering market than it was ten or twenty years ago,” said Rob Bradham of the Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce.
“The laminate flooring, the hard surfaces like ceramic and even sustainable flooring (like) cork, bamboo and some of the other products, people are seeing in addition to carpet and rugs,” said Dr. Marilyn Helms, business professor at Dalton State College. “They’re moving more toward hard surfaces as a preference.”
On its face, this decline of carpet would seem to spell trouble for Dalton—a community that for decades called itself the carpet capital of the world, and employs more than 50,000 people in the industry. But while Beaulieu mostly stuck to making carpet, other carpet manufacturers diversified into making floors more popular in the 21st century.
So despite the bankruptcy of one of its giants, carpet boosters expect the north Georgia city’s manufacturing base to stay solid. “Our businesses here have done a good job of diversifying across the entire category so they can remain competitive,” Bradham said.
And Dalton now calls itself the flooring capital of the world.
