A flooring manufacturer is shutting down its Gaston County factory, laying off almost 300 employees right after Christmas.
New Jersey-based Mannington Mill is closing its McAdenville plant on Dec. 27, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) filed recently with the North Carolina Department of Commerce. All 296 employees will be laid off permanently.
The site was the former Pharr plant, a McAdenville-based yarn manufacturer, which started in 1939. Pharr left the yarn business in 2020, selling the company to Mannington Mill.
Pharr also sold a portion of its company to the London-based Coats Group, which also laid off 41 employees at its McAdenville facility in 2023.
Mannington manufactures flooring product such as hardwood, laminate and vinyl for residential and commercial uses. It also produced residential carpeting, until now.
The closure is part of Mannington’s move to exit the residential carpet business due to decline in demand and unfavorable market conditions, according to a LinkedIn post.
“The continued consumer shift to resilient flooring has forced us to reevaluate residential carpet in our portfolio,” Mannington CEO Tom Pendley said in the post. “This has led us to make the difficult decision to exit residential carpet.”
The company will focus on its residential hard surface options.
The McAdenville facility is one of three that will be closing. The others are located in Dalton and Chatsworth, Georgia. More than 200 people will also be laid off at those facilities.
The company is still taking carpet orders until Dec. 1, according to its website. It will also continue to honor its warranties.
About Mannington Mill
The floor manufacturer opened in 1915 in Salem, New Jersey. In 2020, Mannington entered the residential carpet industry, purchasing Pharr Fibers and Yarns in McAdenville and Phenix Flooring in Dalton. Two years later, it bought Georgia Carpet Finishers in Chatsworth.
All three facilities will be closed by 2026.
Mannington will still produce carpets for commercial properties. Yarn processing operations in McAdenville will be transitioned to Mannington’s site in Calhoun, Georgia.
Mannington may fill open roles at that facilities with the laid-off employees. It’s unclear if that will include the McAdenville workers.
Desiree Mathurin
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