California-based MSI Surfaces intends to renovate the Baymeadows warehouse it bought last year as its first location in the Jacksonville market.
The city is reviewing a permit application for Poseidon Builders of St. Augustine to remodel the warehouse at 8443 Baymeadows Road to add bays and a showroom at an estimated project cost of $1.35 million.
CPH Corp. of Orlando is the architect.
MSISurfaces.com shows it has 44 distribution centers in 29 states in the U.S., with two coming soon in Jacksonville and Orlando.
Florida has two locations in Deerfield Beach and Tampa Bay.
MSI Surfaces, based in Orange, California, also has sales and distribution centers in Canada, Mexico and six more countries - Brazil, China, India, Italy, Turkey and Vietnam.
Commercial real estate company CBRE announced Oct. 23, 2023, that it arranged the purchase of a 67,323-square-foot Baymeadows warehouse by MSI Surfaces from YG Capital of Brooklyn, New York, for $7.8 million. The off-market transaction closed Oct. 17, 2023.
Bryan Bartlett, senior vice president and principal of Newmark Phoenix Realty Group, represented the seller.
8443 Baymeadows Rd. FLJA LCC of Orange County, California, owns the 4.65-acre property. The warehouse was built in 1982.
Rajesh Shah is the manager of the LLC.
CBRE said the Baymeadows Road property was MSI’s first location in the Jacksonville market.
It announced the property will be a sales and distribution center for countertops and slabs along with flooring and tile products.
The two-story building includes warehouse, office and showroom space. The site is less than a mile from Interstate 95.
Previous tenants included the central office of Episcopal Children’s Services, which moved in February 2022 to nearby 8649 Baypine Road.
MSI stands for MS International Inc.
MSISurfaces.com says the company, founded in 1975, has grown to more than $2.8 billion in revenue and supports more than 400,000 jobs worldwide, including more than 3,000 in the U.S.
It says it is the leading nationwide distributor of flooring, countertop, wall tile, and hardscaping products in North America.
The site’s history said that in the 1970s, Manu and Rika Shah arrived in the United States to Fort Wayne, Indiana, from India.
Manu Shah came to earn a master of science degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University, while the Shahs started MSI as a home business where Rika Shah worked during her pregnancy.
Manu Shah became a mechanical engineer with International Harvester. As a second job, he sold blocks of granite to U.S. manufacturers, primarily in the monument industry.
In 1981, still working from their home, the Shahs secured the contract to supply the black granite for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
They decided in 1984 to develop MSI full-time and moved to Southern California to be near distribution points.
By 1987, primarily distributing granite for monuments and tombstones, the Shahs redirected their efforts toward natural stone for the residential and commercial markets.
Sons Raj and Rup left careers in investment banking in 2003 to join the family business and became co-presidents in 2012.
They expanded their products line and locations.
Annual revenue topped $1 billion in 2017.