Floor store aims for more with expansion

SARASOTA — Your Flooring Warehouse is expanding south of the Skyway Bridge, with a new location in Sarasota.

The Sarasota store, at 3333 N. Washington Blvd., is the company's fourth Gulf Coast location, according to a release. Others are in New Port Richey, St. Petersburg and Tampa.

St. Petersburg entrepreneur J.D. Manning founded Your Flooring Warehouse, along with The Carpet Store, in 1988. The business, now including Manning's children and grandchildren, remains family owned and operated. Your Flooring Warehouse locations allow customers to use a high-tech touch screen and specialized software to locate and view flooring materials available worldwide.

“Sarasota is especially somewhere we have wanted to be for a long time,” owner Brian Manning says in the release. “I think we have put together a unique flooring showroom where product samples are all visible rather than being covered up by each other and available digitally as well.”

The grand opening of the Sarasota store, scheduled for April 9, also is backed by an unusual contest: Anyone who visits the store can enter into a drawing to win flooring for their bedroom, kitchen, living room or bathroom. A total of 1,600 square feet of product will be given away, according to the release.