Local office furniture firm JMJ acquired by N.C. competitor

PMC has acquired JMJ Workplace Interiors and its 7910 W. Broad St. office, pictured here. Photo by Jackie DiBartolomeo

Local office furniture and design company JMJ Workplace Interiors recently became the latest acquisition target for a fast-growing competitor from North Carolina. 

PMC Commercial Interiors of Raleigh announced last month that it had purchased JMJ for an undisclosed sum. 

The deal closed in late March, PMC CEO Harry Chalker said, and marks PMC’s first foray into Virginia.

JMJ’s entire staff of 45 employees are making to the move over, adding to PMC’s headcount of 160. PMC also will maintain JMJ’s office at 7910 W. Broad St. and its warehouse at 6031 Nine Mile Road. 

The seller in the deal was the Massad family, which had founded JMJ more than 40 years ago, providing furniture and design services for office spaces across the region.

John Massad, who had been JMJ’s manager and co-owner, said his father got into the business in 1960, providing furniture for hotels and motels. A couple decades later in 1980, the family refocused on office furniture and has been in that business ever since. 

“Up until this purchase by PMC, we were central Virginia’s oldest office furniture dealer under the same ownership,” Massad said. 

Massad previously co-owned JMJ with three of his siblings, though he had a controlling interest. He said that as he’s gotten older, he began looking for another company to purchase the business, in lieu of any children or other relatives who were interested in taking it over. 

In speaking to several companies about acquiring JMJ, Massad said he felt Chalker and PMC were by far the right fit to acquire JMJ.

PMC provides many similar services to JMJ – supplying office furniture, consulting on and design of office spaces, warehousing and asset management for office furniture, and other services.  

PMC was founded originally in 1945 as the Raleigh Office Supply Company. The company experienced several acquisitions before eventually being purchased by Chalker in 2011. Under Chalker, the name changed from Price Modern to PMC. 

Along with similar “company values,” both the office furniture suppliers specialize in providing office furniture products to customers from Haworth, a Michigan-based furniture manufacturer. 

Chalker said that PMC has been working on a decade-long growth strategy in recent years, opening new locations in Charlotte, Charleston and beyond, including a recent office opening in Wilmington.

When he spoke with Massad about acquiring JMJ, Chalker felt that the company’s location and offerings fit well with PMC’s growth strategy. 

“We’re not interested in moving to Des Moines, or something like that. Richmond’s two hours away from our headquarters in Raleigh. It’s similar to Raleigh in that it’s a state capital, has a lot of higher-ed and healthcare and a healthy business climate,” Chalker said. 

Massad said PMC will keep the West Broad Street office location at least for the near future, but may expand to a larger location sometime down the road. 

PMC has six office locations and four other warehouse locations across North Carolina and South Carolina, per its website. 

Massad will remain with the company during its transition into becoming part of PMC, which both he and Chalker said should take around a year or so. 

“I wanted to find a potential buyer while we were still profitable and viable, and while I can still hang around for a little bit and hopefully still add a little service to make a smooth transition,” Massad said. 

JMJ will likely be known as a division of PMC for the first year of the acquisition, after which the JMJ name will go away under the PMC umbrella. 

The Massad family also previously owned the Massad House Hotel at 11 N. Fourth St. since 1960. They sold the property and several other nearby buildings and parking lots in December of 2022 to Douglas Development for $4.4 million.