Winter Haven Federal Building

The City of Winter Haven brought us in to recarpet the Federal Building on 3rd Street SW downtown. It began as a New Deal post office, financed through the Treasury Department's Public Works Administration, and served as the city's post office until 1967. After that it became a U.S. Department of Agriculture food analysis laboratory, and the words FEDERAL BUILDING and U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE still sit over the entrance. The City took ownership in 2003. USDA continues to lease space there, and a working building with a federal tenant does not close for a floor.

So the job ran in two phases, August 2025 and April 2026, with the old carpet coming out ahead of each one. In went 2,520 square feet of Philadelphia Commercial Terrena carpet tile in Alcove, an 18 by 36 inch plank tile in 100% EcoSolution Q100 nylon, finished with cove base at the walls. Carpet tile is the right floor for a building that has to stay open. A section closes, gets floored, and reopens. Years from now a worn or stained tile lifts out and a new one drops in, and the rest of the floor never knows.

The photographs here are from the August 2025 phase: the entry, where the new tile runs up to the glazed block walls, and the offices with the furniture pushed to one side while the floor went down.