GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — High-end furniture manufacturer Steelcase is making some moves in how it showcases its high-end contract furniture and accessory items and an increase in distribution capacity in the Western United States. 

Steelcase, the fifth largest manufacturer in the FDMC 300 ranking, announced that it is moving its large, high-profile showroom in Chicago to Chicago's Fulton Market District after more than half a century in the Merchandise Mart, adding to a run of furniture and design firms that have made the same jump.

Steelcase also announced that it planned to close a California distribution center and relocate it to the Phoenix metro in an industrial development center known as C|303 under construction at 5101 N. Cotton Lane in Glendale.

Executive managing director Isy Sonabend and senior associate Drew Eisen with NAI Horizon and Arie Salomon with NAI P-S-P in Seattle represented Steelcase in a long-term lease valued at $10.8 million. Upon completion of construction, the building that Steelcase will occupy — Building A — will total 375,660 square feet.

According to numerous reports, Phoenix-based Merit Partners, First Industrial Realty Trust, and Diamond Realty Investments broke ground in 2022 on phase one of C|303, a Class A industrial logistics park in the West Valley’s Loop 303 industrial corridor. At build-out, the project will occupy 1 full mile of Loop 303 frontage.

“Following an extensive site selection process, the occupancy of Steelcase Inc. in the West Valley provides this iconic American furniture manufacturer with a strategic location to distribute its product lines in the Southwest,” Sonabend said.