By Janis Mara, BUSINESS WRITER

AFTER NEARLY 130 years in the Bay Area, Oakland’s Gorman & Son Furniture is closing, signaling the end of an era.
“It’s a tough, tough market,” said Chuck Rosenberg, who owns the store with his wife, Andrea. The store, a Berkeley fixture since 1880, moved to Oakland’s Auto Row on Broadway in 2003.


The Rosenbergs are shuttering the store, located in the former Saw Mill site, and moving to Florida to be closer to Andrea Rosenberg’s parents.
“Demand for new furniture is way down,” said Chuck Rosenberg, who is retiring, although his wife will seek new employment. “It got to the point where I didn’t feel like fighting any more.”
The store will remain open probably through September to liquidate inventory and to make sure all outstanding orders are filled, Chuck Rosenberg said.
Ron and Marty Sherman, who own the store’s six-story building near Interstate 580, will continue renting the top three stories as live-work lofts and are seeking a retail tenant to replace Gorman in the bottom three stories, Chuck Rosenberg said. Six people work at Gorman, including the Rosenbergs.The $79 billion furniture industry is fighting a slump, with 44 percent of all wood furniture coming from foreign imports. Huge national chain stores such as Heilig-Meyers have bitten the dust, partially because they couldn’t compete with the imports, said Michael Pierce of the National Home Furnishings Association in an interview last year.
“There used to be more of a market for this