Fort Wayne, IN, November 12--Eagle Tile Distributors plans to invest more than $1 million to a larger, more visible location near Glenbrook Square, according to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.
The company employs 10 and is a wholesale distributor of imported ceramic tiles for residential and commercial uses. Annual sales were not disclosed.
Eagle Tile will move into a 25,000-square-foot building at 220 Fernhill Ave. and plans to add an additional 10,000 square feet to the building, Gregg Kiester, company president, said Thursday.
The new site will include a roughly 13,000-square-foot showroom and a roughly 22,000-square-foot distribution center, he said.
The company is seeking a tax abatement from the city of Fort Wayne.
The Fernhill Avenue building was used by Ervin Bros. Furniture, which went out of business early this year.
Eagle Tile, which opened in 1987, needed expanded showroom space because of increased customer demand, Kiester said. Demand is up about 25 percent compared with the same time last year, he said.
Eagle Tile, which is currently in a leased, 20,000-square-foot building, plans to add three sales positions in 2005.
The relocation is expected to be completed next summer, Kiester said.
Rob Young, president of the Fort Wayne-Allen County Economic Development Alliance, welcomed the news.
"This is a prime example of a home-grown company whose business has evolved to warrant this kind of expansion," Young said. "It’s also a good example of an adaptive reuse of an existing building."
This Eagle Tile project, he said, helps "show that future job growth by and large will come in small chunks but taken together they have a significant effect."
