Dal-Tile to Close Florence, Alabama Plant After 72 Years

Dal-Tile will permanently close its Florence, Alabama tile plant on February 26, 2027, ending 72 years of manufacturing at a site that has changed owners four times since 1954.

The company shut the plant on October 16, 2026, citing a housing market slowdown that weakened tile demand, according to a notice filed by the company. Employees who spoke to Shoals Insider said Dal-Tile vice president Claudio Caselli told workers the decision was made to "optimize" operations due to the housing market being at a low point.

Why is Florence closing now?

The stated driver is demand. The housing market sits at a low point, and tile volumes follow housing starts. Caselli framed the closure as an optimization, not a verdict on the workforce.

Two structural factors sit behind the timing. Florence is a union operation; Mohawk's Dickson, Tennessee plant is non-union. And Dickson carries newer equipment: since 2016 it has run digital imaging, rectifying, polishing and an efficient roller-hearth kiln — capabilities that could give it a cost advantage over the 72-year-old Alabama site.

For contractors and distributors in the Southeast, that means glazed porcelain floor tile production consolidates toward Tennessee. For the roughly seven-decade-old Florence workforce, the February 2027 date marks the end of the line.

What is the plant's history?

The Florence facility opened in 1954 under Stylon Corporation. The ownership chain since then:

• After Stylon's bankruptcy, Monarch Tile took over the facility.
• August 1998: Marazzi acquired the Florence operation from Monarch. It operated as Monarch Ceramic Tile within American Marazzi Tile, part of Italy's Marazzi Group.
• 2003–2005: Substantial expansion. A $5.3 million expansion came first, followed by a $17 million investment that added a new 160,000-square-foot building and a second porcelain production line intended to nearly double capacity. The plant produced glazed porcelain floor tile.
• April 2013: Mohawk acquired Marazzi, Monarch plant included, bringing Florence under the Dal-Tile banner.

That $22.3 million in mid-2000s investment bought the site more than two decades of life. It did not buy competitiveness against a plant equipped two decades later.

What changes for buyers and specifiers?

Dal-Tile has not announced severance terms or worker transition plans in the notice. The closure removes one of the older porcelain lines from Mohawk's North American network and concentrates that capacity at Dickson, where the 2016 upgrade already covers imaging, rectifying and polishing.

The closure also closes a chapter in American ceramic manufacturing. Florence began producing tile in 1954, nine years before Mohawk itself entered the ceramic business. When the kilns cool on February 26, 2027, the site will have outlived Stylon, Monarch and Marazzi — but not the housing cycle.