A company that sells a line of artistic and award-winning office furniture with a long history is moving into one of Downtown’s historic buildings.
CBI, a Charlotte, N.C.-based dealer for Knoll office furniture, is renovating space on the ground floor at the Dyal-Upchurch Building for its Jacksonville showroom.
The build-out is an investment of more than $98,000, according to a permit issued by the city.
The company has 10 locations in the Southeast, from the Carolinas to South Florida.
It established an administrative and outside sales office in 2015 at Deerwood Park to be close to one of its largest clients, Bank of America.
The Dyal-Upchurch Building, on Bay Street at the Main Street Bridge, is one block from the bank’s Downtown office tower.
The history of Knoll office furniture goes back to Germany and Wilhelm Knoll, who in 1865 founded a family business that built a reputation for high-quality furniture.
His grandson, Hans, moved to New York City and in 1938, founded Knoll Inc.
The company began manufacturing and distributing tubular steel furniture designed by Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
It was the beginning of an ever-developing portfolio that is considered as much modern art as furniture, including designs by Frank Gehry and Maya Lin.
More than 40 Knoll designs are included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
In 2011, Knoll received the National Design Award for Corporate and Institutional Achievement from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.
The product line includes office and institutional furniture, home furnishings, accessories and outdoor furniture.
The new showroom, at about 3,000 square feet, will primarily display the office furniture line. It is scheduled to open by December, said CBI spokeswoman Madelen Salter.
“Knoll has quite a history and we’re going to be in a historic building. We are excited to be Downtown,” she said.
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