Between football, dogs and folks who just want a manicured lawn with little to no care involved, business is booming at Louisville-based ForeverLawn, which may soon have to expand.
The company, located just east of Canton, has developed several types of artificial turf for specialized applications, along with a national network of more than 70 dealers that sell and install its products.
What started as a small family business has grown to an enterprise that generates between $25 million and $35 million in annual company revenue, and revenue of $70 million to $80 million representing the total sales of its national dealer network, said ForeverLawn CEO Dale Karmie.
"We've actually been growing very fast. We've probably doubled (revenue) twice since 2014," said Karmie, who co-owns the company he founded in 2004 with his brother Brian.
The artificial turf market has been growing as a whole as more people and organizations seek to avoid devoting labor and resources toward the care of real grass, Karmie said. Plus, turf has improved over the years, he added.
Most sports fans are aware of how artificial turf, once known almost universally by the brand name AstroTurf, has improved. Gone are the days when artificial fields offered athletes the chance to get a concussion and rug burn all in the same fall or tackle. The new artificial fields now provide the feel and padding of real turf.
But ForeverLawn has taken the concept a step further — several steps in fact.
"We've kind of divided into five market segments that we call vertical markets," Karmie said, noting that each segment has its own specialized turf, designed by ForeverLawn and made for it by a third-party manufacturer in Georgia.
Among them is the company's perennial big seller, which it calls K9 grass. Designed for dogs, it allows urine to flow through without staining, is made to not cling to that-which-must-be-scooped, and is chew- and dig-proof while still being an ideal surface for dogs to run on, Karmie said. It's also anti-microbial, he added.
Then there's the company's playground grass, which is softer than most other turf to be safe for falling kids; golf-green grass that is short and puttable; sports grass for athletic fields; and regular turf for lawns at homes and businesses.
"Landscape, K9 and playground drive the majority of our volume. … But what's been growing in recent years is the sports grass and the golf greens," Karmie said.
Business has been good since the company moved to Ohio from its original home in Albuquerque, N.M., Karmie said. He and his brother initially thought its product would do best in the water-starved Southwest, but soon found it didn't need to be located there and the owners moved it back to their native Ohio.
Karmie thinks the company can continue to grow by capturing more market share.
"I'd love to say that we're dominating the market, but we're not," he said. "We're probably less than 10% of the residential turf market. We have so much opportunity to grow."
If the company can get more of that market and continue its upward trajectory as planned, ForeverLawn probably will need to build more space for itself in Louisville.
Currently, the company operates from a 12,000-square-foot office building and 30,000 square feet of warehouse space on a 35-acre site with room to build more, Karmie said.
"We already do," Karmie said when asked if he'll need to expand. "We moved in here in 2018 and we thought we had enough space to last us a decade, but we're full. We'll probably look at an expansion in the next 12 to 24 months."
The company hasn't decided what it will build, but Karmie said it needs to house a larger staff.
ForeverLawn has grown in all aspects, including revenue, dealers and direct employees, Karmie said, adding it also needs more workers.
"We have 70-plus people employed by ForeverLawn, and we also have, I think, 75 dealers across the country," said Karmie.
ForeverLawn is currently looking for people, he said, including a marketing director, installation support team members and other positions.
"We're not running lean. We're not trying to keep our staff as small as possible to maximize profits; we're probably doing the opposite," said Karmie, who added his priority is to make sure the company adequately serves its customers and its dealers to support further growth.
It does that well, too, said Tim Bast, a dealer and owner of ForeverLawn of South Jersey, near Philadelphia. Though he's only 31, Bast already has a long history with the company as a dealer. His father started the dealership when Tim was still in high school, and he would sometimes miss class to help with an install, he said.
Bast said he likes ForeverLawn because the Karmies treat their dealers well and, perhaps even more importantly, because the company has what he thinks is the best turf on the market.
"We've been installing it for 15 years, and we've never had to replace it at a single project," Bast said.
In and around Philadelphia, ForeverLawn's K9 grass has been an especially big hit with customers, according to Bast.
"As places are becoming more pet friendly, they really need a place for dogs to run around and play. Especially in the Philadelphia area, we're doing a lot of dog parks," Bast said. "We've actually done all the synthetic turf (municipal) dog parks in Philadelphia. They all have K9 grass. … We're doing apartment complexes, rooftop dog parks downtown and then a lot of residential homes, too."
Here in Ohio, though, Karmie said sports stadiums are becoming his biggest customers.
To date, the company has done mostly high school fields, he said, in addition to sports turf installations for the NFL Network, ESPN, Disney and Universal Studios. But that's about to change.
"In the field market, it's mostly been at the high school level. But we're doing our first collegiate field at Malone University down here in Canton," Karmie said. "That's happening this summer. It will probably start in about four weeks (in early July). That will be our first college competition game field."
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