A three-alarm fire at a Baltimore self-storage facility Sunday destroyed several units, but was contained before spreading to other buildings.  

The blaze at U-Store Storage began just before 6 a.m., creating billows of heavy smoke. Firefighters limited the damage to one building by placing companies on all sides of the two-story structure and keeping up ventilation efforts through the roof and other access points. The fire was brought under control about 8:45 a.m.

No one was injured. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

A Moove In Self Storage facility in Warriors Mark, Pa., was sold for an undisclosed amount to a private self-storage investor active in central Pennsylvania.

The sale consists of 6,400 square feet of self-storage buildings and an apartment/office building with 2,160 square feet, known as Pennington Plaza. The 67 units were 90 percent occupied at the time of sale.

Constructed around 1995, the property was originally built as a restaurant and converted to an office building in 2001. Two office suites were converted to apartments in mid-2009 and promptly rented. The property is located on Route 550, one of the major north-south arterials connecting State College and Altoona.

John H. Gilliland of Investment Real Estate represented the seller and buyer in the transaction. Investment Real Estate provides self-storage brokerage, construction, management and consulting services in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states. 

By Jon Orlando

Whether youre the manager of a new facility or one thats recently been expanded or remodeled, youll likely have some construction-warranty issues. Once youve discovered a problem, you may wonder:

• Is this covered under the warranty?
• Who do I call?
• How long do they have to respond?
• Who pays for the damage to the tenants goods?

These are all good questions. Lets take a closer look at whats involved in warranty claims, your role in handling them, and how you can head off problems.

Review Documentation

The most important part of the warranty process is documentation. Once your project is complete, the contractor should issue a one-year warranty that covers the project in general, and subcontractor/vendor warranties covering the individual trades. Keep in mind that warranties for the latter can be longer than one year, especially for things such as air-conditioning systems and roofs, so make sure you review these warranties carefully.

Theres no need to be bashful about requesting the warranties, either. Most contractors expect to provide these documents before receiving final payment. If you didnt receive a written document specifically warranting the work after your project was completed, dont worry. Most courts uphold the one-year warranty as implicit to the industry, so youre still legally covered.

Although most warranty language is pretty standard in the construction industry, review your documents and make sure everything looks in order. The most important information on the documentation is the dates. Check the warranty to and from dates and make sure theyre accurate. The start date of the warranty should be at the time of completion and can be related to a Certificate of Occupancy or Notice of Acceptance issued by the building department.

Once youre satisfied with the dates, do yourself a favor and mark the end date on a calendar at least a month before the warranty period expires. At that time you can review the entire project for any outstanding issues and provide notice to the contractor for any necessary repairs.

Examine Coverage

Just as with a new car, certain items are covered under a contractors warranty and other items are considered wear and tear. In addition, failure to provide maintenance can void or reduce your ability to recover damages under the warranty.

Once a new self-storage facility, remodel or expansion is complete, the contractor will provide a full one-year warranty for the project. This covers basically everything installed on your project, however, it doesnt cover damage to the facility caused by tenants. In addition, make sure your facility is maintained. Roof leaks caused by debris on roofs or clogged gutters dont constitute a warranty claim, nor does improperly functioning air conditioning due to unchanged filters.

Provide Notice

Always notify the prime contractor when theres a warranty issue with the facility. The contractor understands the complexity of the project and, based on the warranty claim, can notify the proper subcontractors and vendors as necessary. In addition, the contractor has the legal leverage to force the subcontractor to respond if necessary. Youll find most contractors will reply to your claim promptly, as they value their reputation and want to continue the relationship in the hope of getting more work.

Some contractors will request that you contact the subcontractor or vendor directly to handle the warranty claim, but dont do this. If you do, you may find yourself in arguments and issues that happened during the project and are not necessarily of your concern. Your contract agreement for the project was with the prime contractor, and it is the company legally responsible for resolving the warranty claim in the first year.  

Depending on the urgency of the claim, you may choose to notify the contractor in several ways. The most efficient process is to place a phone call regarding the issue and follow up with an e-mail. The phone call ensures quick notification, but the e-mail is important, as it establishes the date and provides a written description of the problem.

Although its not your responsibility to dissect the warranty issue, the more information you give the contractor the better. Make sure you provide a location (Building A, B, C, etc.) and a unit number. Pictures are always helpful and can assist the contractor in communicating with the subcontractors and vendors, accelerating the response time to your claim.

Scheduling Work and Follow-Up

How long does the contractor have to respond? Response time generally relates to the nature of the claim. Its important to be reasonable with your expectations based on the urgency of your problem. Issues like leaks and broken air conditioning can cause damage to customer goods and should be addressed quickly. On the other hand, a small area of pealing paint or a broken floor tile doesnt warrant a next-day response.

However, its reasonable to expect the contractor to respond to your request within one week. This timeframe gives the contractor time to analyze the claim and decide which of the subcontractors is responsible for the warranty work. If you dont get response or acknowledgement of your claim, follow up. Make sure the follow-up is documented in case you have to do the work yourself and are forced to take legal action.

Paying for Damage

Who pays for damage to tenants goods? This is perhaps the most complicated question. The fact is most contractors will be willing to pay for damaged goods, but many self-storage lease agreements explicitly state the facility isnt responsible for damage. It may be difficult to legally force the contractor to pay if the operator isnt obligated to do so.

In addition, its important you mitigate any continuing damages. For example, if theres a leak in a unit that has slightly damaged a piece of furniture, youre under some obligation to relocate the tenants goods so the damage doesnt continue. If a legal situation arises, the courts will probably award you the cost for relocation of the goods, but may not award further damage to items that could have been avoided.

The best thing to do is be upfront with the contractor for any expenses beyond the repair. If the contractor refuses to pay, you may be in a legal quandary and will need to seek counsel to review the terms and conditions of the contract and insurance requirements for the project.

Warranty claims can be a difficult and aggravating process. Just remember to provide as much information as possible on your initial claim, be realistic about the contractors timeframe to respond, and follow up accordingly.

Jon F. Orlando is the vice president of construction for Oden Hardy Construction Inc. in Bradenton, Fla. The design-build firm specializes in the self-storage industry throughout the Southeast. For more information call 941.792.2233; e-mail [email protected] ; visit www.odenhardy.com .

By Dr. Marvin Marshall

Any positive working relationship is based on trust. An environment of trust assumes both parties will be safe, and it carries with it an implicit message that you have each others best interests in mind. Thats why employees can accept criticism and even anger from a boss they trust. The employees know deep down the boss really means to help.

Trust is an interesting quality because once its lost, its hard to recapture. Many professional relationships gasped their last breath with the words, I just do not trust you anymore. Therefore, to have optimum working relationships, all parties must feel a sense of trust.

The question then is: How do you develop trust between people in the workplace? After all, when you have people from various backgrounds coming to work together, they usually dont have a history with each other, and theres no base of trust to begin with and grow upon. Thats the reason self-storage owners need to be proactive and create an environment of trust apparent to all.

Limit Lecturing

To ensure employees make good decisions, business owners often begin to lecture. If you reflect on this, youll soon realize lecturing and telling your employees what to do implies you dont have faith in their decision-making abilities. This can result in them becoming defensive. In addition, employees can lose faith in their own confidence to make decisions. If people dont have faith in themselves, then the owners faith in them decreases even more, and the lecturing begins again.

Even well-intentioned lectures convey the subtle, negative message that what the employee has done is wrong or not good enough. This often results in defensiveness and resistance. All people are sensitive about being told what to do, and they often want to prove themselves in the workplace. Rather than lecture employees, consider using reflective questions such as, What do you think about? Have you thought of? and Would you consider?

Listen to Learn

Epictetus, a Greek philosopher, is credited with the statement, Man has one tongue but two ears that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.

Listening to learn and valuing peoples feelings and ideas is what promotes the ability of owners to effectively communicate with and influence their staff. Listen to learn means not inserting your opinion and not judging what the person says while hes speaking. For most owners, their first reaction is to evaluate the manager from his own point of view and then approve or disapprove of what the person says. This is listening autobiographically. It shuts down the managers self-confidence, initiative and open communication. An easy strategy for replacing this tendency of listening autobiographically is to cultivate the habit of listening to learn.

Listening is a skill that can be improved. It starts by taking the position of a good listener. Its getting ready to hear whats about to be said. Its refraining from the all too common practice of hearing a few words and then jumping in with a response. You may have experienced the feeling that arose when someone finished your sentence before you finished it. The feeling is not a positive one! When an owner interrupts a manager whos attempting to communicate, it prompts a negative emotion. No one enjoys being interrupted when trying to make a point.

Listening in anticipation of what an employee will say is another habit to break. Listening in anticipation encourages interruptions. All people want to be acknowledged and dont wish to feel that you know whats about to be said. Interrupting is an indication that you dont care about hearing the other persons viewpoint as much as your own.

An employer who listens well acknowledges his employees feelings and opinions. Yes, zipping the lip is extremely difficult for most self-storage owners, but its the surest way to improve communication and build trust. Remember, no great insight ever enters the mind through an open mouth. Its important to let people know that youre willing to listen, even though it may not result in agreement.

A simple Talk to me about it is an effective start to dialogue. Just use the most effective sales principle: Inquiry precedes advocacy. In other words, listen before you talk. When you feel a temptation to interrupt, redirect that impulse by thinking of the following question: Will I be more effective if I listen first?

Work Smarter

Many people often say, If I want something done right, I have to do it myself. Yet effective self-storage owners know that delegation of tasks is essential for building trust in the workplace. When you hold onto tasks and dont delegate, you deprive your managers of an opportunity to advance their skills. Accept the fact that growth comes through struggle. Babying your employees hinders their professional development and implies you dont have faith in them. Focus on treating your staff as if they are who, how and what you would like them to be. Treating people as if they are responsible and empowered increases their chances of becoming so.

Once the employee completes a task, the objective should be to focus on progress rather than perfection. If the persons result doesnt meet your expectations, you can still find something positive to comment on while helping the employee understand the initial expectations. This is far more effective than comments that foster guilt or a sense of failure. A positive approach prompts an incentive for the taskin contrast to criticizing, which provides a disincentive.

Remember: There isnt any empowerment more effective than self-empowerment. Because being positive is so enabling, its best to displace thoughts and communications that are destructive. Continually ask yourself how what you want to communicate can be put in a positive way. For example, saying, You are bad tempered, has the same meaning as, You need to work on controlling your temper. However, the first labels the person, whereas the second enables the person.

People change more by building on their strengths and aptitudes than by working on their weaknesses. This doesnt mean that an area of weakness should not be worked on, but it does mean an owners emphasis should be on what the manager can do, rather than on what the manager cannot do. The simple belief that something can be done is the spark that ignites the brain to act.

Without trust in the workplace, communication and teamwork will erode. Additionally, morale will decrease while turnover will rise. However, by using these three strategies you can build your employees trust in management, thereby making their workplace an environment filled with innovation, creativity and, ultimately, higher profit for all. 

Dr. Marvin Marshall, an educator, writer and lecturer, is widely known for his programs on discipline and learning. His approach stemmed from acquiring knowledge about youth as a parent; a recreation director and camp counselor; a classroom teacher and school counselor; an elementary and high school principal; district director of education; and as a certificate holder from the William Glasser Institute. For more information, visit www.marvinmarshall.com .

One self-storage owners battle against eminent domain continues as the U.S. Supreme Court meets today to consider whether it will re-evaluate the legality of the case.

After years of court battles and appeals, self-storage owner Nicholas Sprayregen lost his fight in a New York eminent domain case against Columbia University last summer. The New York Court of Appeals in Albany ruled in June the state can use its eminent domain power to acquire private property for an expansion for Columbia University. Eminent domain is state seizure of private property for the public good in exchange for market-rate compensation.

The ruling reversed a lower court ruling from December 2009 that stopped the state from taking property from Sprayregen and Gurnam Singh and Parminder Kaur, the owners of two gas stations. Sprayregen owns four Tuck-It-Away Self Storage facilities in Manhattanville.

Now the U.S. Supreme Court could decide to grant certiorarithe official term for agreeing to hear a case. If it denies certiorari, the state will be able to seize the private properties on the Universitys behalf. The court, which has officially scheduled this case for conference today, grants just one percent of all petitions for certiorari.

Columbia unveiled plans to build a satellite campus in 2003 and has since attempted to obtain parts of a 17-acre site in Upper Manhattan for its $6.3 billion expansion. After Sprayregen refused to sell his property, Columbia sought to obtain the land through eminent domain.

The legal battle began in December 2008, when Empire State Development Corp., the state agency that approves eminent domain, deemed the neighborhood blighted. Sprayregen, Singh, and Kaur then filed lawsuits.

Sprayregen told Inside Self-Storage last summer that he was stunned by the Court of Appeals decision and reversal of the prior Appellate ruling. The Court of Appeals virtually ignored most of the facts we presented during the proceeding.

Although he hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will consider the case, he told ISS, I am enough of a realist to know they only take 1 percent or 2 percent of the cases brought to their attention.

The last Supreme Court eminent domain decision was Kelo v. City of New London in 2005, in which property owners lost their case.

If the Supreme Court refuses the case, the business owners will be out of options, paving the way for Columbia Universitys proposed expansion. The court is expected to make a decision by Monday. 

Uncle Bob's Self Storage is partnering with American Hockey Leagues Syracuse Crunch in the Name Your Own Price ticket promotion.

Crunch fans who purchase a regularly priced ticket at the Oncenter War Memorial Box Office or the Crunch office to the teams Dec. 19 or March 16 home game can name their own price for a second ticket courtesy of Uncle Bobs Self-Storage.

Uncle Bobs Self Storage has more than 350 storage facilities across the United States. The national chain is owned by Sovran Self Storage Inc., a real estate investment trust.

A self-storage facility acquired by The Hampshire Cos. last fall is now open for business. Lock and Leave in Cherry Hill, N.J., sold in a short sale to Hampshire Cos. in September. The facility was purchased from Rock Hill Road Associates LLC for an undisclosed price.

Until the acquisition, the 50,000-square-foot facility had remained unfinished since 2006. Situated on 2.6 acres, the facility has 439 climate-controlled and non-climate-controlled units. Its located near Route 70 and Interstate 295.

The sale was brokered by Supnick Real Estate Co., a full-service firm offering advisory and brokerage services to the self-storage industry.

American Buildings Co. (ABC), a NUCOR company and manufacturer of metal-building systems, recently honored Terry Spence, president of Southern Plastics, for choosing buildings made from American steel.

ABC presented Spence with a Proud to Buy American plaque Nov. 22. By choosing an ABC metal-building system in the construction of seven of its buildings, Southern Plastics is helping to safeguard American jobs, as well as, provide a green, environmentally friendly alternative to conventional construction.

Since 1976, Southern Plastics has manufactured plastic fishing lures for major brands. The company molds the lures with injection machines and packages them to be sold in large department stores, such as Bass Pro Shop. As the largest producer of injection soft-plastic manufactured fishing lures in the country, Southern Plastics is one of the few companies to produce lures in the United States.

We are a small entity so its nice to be recognized, and its an honor to be able to recognize all those that have made this company successful, Spence said.

Zippy Shell Mobile Self Storage recently opened in Collin County, Texas. The company is owned by Tim and JoAnne Scalf, area residents and owners of HLA, Inc. The two have entered into a franchise agreement with Zippy Shell USA LLC to offer mobile storage throughout the Collin County/North Dallas area.

Zippy Shell mobile-storage containers can be parked as a registered vehicle in and around cities, and are equipped with an alarm and GPS system.

Tim and JoAnne Scalf know their market well and have the business expertise to deliver a seamless experience for customers, offering competitive pricing and convenient door-to-door service, said Rick Del Sontro, president, Zippy Shell USA, LLC.