Benefitfocus Inc. plans to triple the size of its Daniel Island headquarters and expects to add 1,200 jobs, the benefits software company said today.

The company will break ground Tuesday on a building project that will expand its technology campus from 13 acres to 40 acres, according to its announcement. Gov. Nikki Haley is scheduled to join President and CEO Shawn Jenkins for the ceremony at 10 a.m.

“Benefitfocus is an excellent example of innovation in our state,” Haley said in the company’s announcement. “Today’s announcement highlights the entrepreneurial spirit that keeps South Carolina in the forefront of the technology industry on the East Coast. We celebrate their continued investment in South Carolina and the creation of 1,200 new jobs.”

What will be built

The expansion will triple the size of the current headquarters to nearly 500,000 square feet, with five buildings on the campus, the company said. Walking paths, cart paths and trails will connect the buildings. Benefitfocus said the added space will give it room for about 1,200 more associates, as it calls its employees.

The first new building will be a 145,000-square-foot Customer Success Center. It will house the company’s growing staff of customer implementation and service workers, along with new training and certification programs for associates, customers and partners. Benefitfocus expects the building to be complete and operating in the first quarter of 2015.

“We are creating a community within a community, and it’s exciting to see this expanded technology campus come to life,” Jenkins said in the announcement. “We are committed to the Charleston community and to our Daniel Island neighbors especially.”

He added that the company’s “passion for design and engineering is such a powerful part of what makes Benefitfocus great,” and that the campus will help it “attract world-class engineering talent.”

Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, Berkeley County Supervisor Dan Davis and Ernest Andrade, founder and director of the Charleston Digital Corridor and the city’s Office of Business Development, are also expected to attend, the company said.

How big a jump

The company had about 800 full-time employees on June 30 and said in its September prospectus that it employed about 862. The planned 1,200 jobs would more than double that workforce.

Benefitfocus was founded in 2000 with a single office in Mount Pleasant and moved to its Daniel Island campus in 2006, the company said. It opened a Design + Engineering building on the campus last year.

As of June 30, it occupied about 65,000 square feet in one building on the Daniel Island Executive Center campus and about 78,000 square feet in a second, according to its prospectus. It leases both from Daniel Island Executive Center LLC. Executive Chairman Mason Holland owns a supermajority interest in that company through Holland Properties LLC, and Jenkins owns the rest, the prospectus says.

A new public company

The expansion comes three months after Benefitfocus went public. It sold 3 million shares at $26.50 each in September, raising about $73.9 million before expenses, and its stock trades on Nasdaq under the symbol BNFT.

Its software lets employees shop for, enroll in and manage health, dental, life and other benefits in one place. The company sells subscriptions to employers and to insurance carriers, and says it has served more than 20 million people on its platform.

Revenue grew 26.3% in the third quarter to $26.3 million, according to the company’s quarterly report. Employer revenue rose 66.2% in the quarter. Benefitfocus is still losing money: it reported a net loss of $22 million for the first nine months of 2013.

A new director

Benefitfocus also said today that it has added Stephen M. Swad, president and chief executive of language software company Rosetta Stone Inc., to its board. Swad, a former chief financial officer of Rosetta Stone, Comverse Technology and Fannie Mae, will chair the board’s compensation committee and serve on its audit committee. His appointment brings the board to seven members.

“We look forward to his contributions as Benefitfocus continues to innovate within its industry and grow as a public company,” Holland said in the announcement.