Inside Self-Storage (ISS) has published a new online image gallery, Self-Storage Around the World: Reflections of Non-U.S. Facilities on Six Continents. The free presentation takes viewers on a virtual world tour, with visual examples of self-storage facilities from several international locales including São Paulo, Brazil, and Chai Wan, Hong Kong. The images were provided by facility operators, developers and building manufacturers and help illustrate similarities and differences between foreign and domestic markets.

Highlighted locations include self-storage facilities in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Panama, Russia, South Africa and the United Kingdom. The gallery includes descriptions explaining how operators are innovating to serve their markets and bringing unique products and services to customers.

The gallery can be viewed at www.insideselfstorage.com/galleries. Other galleries can also be viewed through the same page.

Earlier this year, to provide more in-depth information to global investors, builders and operators, ISS released its 2013 International Digital Issue, which includes in-depth articles about the growth, challenges and operation of self-storage in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. It includes articles on market evolution, development, financing, operations, obstacles, solutions and more. The issue can be downloaded at www.insideselfstorage.com/digital-issues.

For more than 20 years, ISS has provided informational resources for the self-storage industry. Its educational offerings include ISS magazine, the annual Inside Self-Storage World Expo in Las Vegas, an extensive website, the Self-Storage Training Institute, the ISS Store, and Self-Storage Talk, the industrys largest online community.

The Lincoln County Planning and Inspections Department held a community-involvement meeting on Dec. 12, inviting residents to offer feedback on a proposed self-storage expansion in Denver, N.C. Danielle and Steven Maggs, owners of Sure-Safe Self Storage, asked the county planning department for permission to rezone .7 acres from neighborhood business to conditional zoning general industrial to permit the expansion.

The 6 p.m. meeting was held at Sure-Safe Storage, 1675 Highway 16 N. The property is on the west side of Highway 16, about 250 feet north of Galway Lane in the Catawba Springs Township.

Access Self Storage, which operates more than 50 facilities in the United Kingdom, created a video revealing where Santa Claus keeps all his presentsin self-storage, of course. The video, available on Self-Storage TV, shows Santa reviewing his gift list and organizing his presents. He also makes time to enjoy some cookies before locking up the storage unit and heading out into the snow. 

With 196 countries to visit in just one night, Santa Claus is one busy man. So you can imagine what a fluster he got in when news spread of the North Poles space shortage, said Access Self Storage Marketing Manager Kevin Pratt. We are happy we are able to help Santa fulfill his annual mission of delivering Christmas presents to children around the world, and our stores will continue to spread as much festive cheer as possible in the lead up to Christmas!

Access Self Storage offers a variety of unit sizes and 24-hour customer access at many of its stores. A large concentration of its facilities are in the Greater London. In addition to traditional self-storage, Access offers records storage and vehicle storage, and sells packing and shipping supplies.

Lockaway Self Storage, which operates 35 self-storage facilities throughout California and Texas, recently purchased Michener Self Storage in Austin, Texas. The 964-unit, 107,565-square-foot facility sits on 17 acres between I-35 and SH130 in Northeast Austin. It offers climate control and a wide variety of outdoor open and covered parking spaces.

Lockaway and the undisclosed Austin-based seller were represented in the transaction by Bill Bellomy, Michael Johnson and John Owens of Bellomy & Co., formerly The Southern Storage Group. Bellomy & Co. is a commercial real estate investment services firm headquartered in Austin, Texas. With an additional office in Lubbock, Texas, the company focuses on the sale of self-storage, industrial, office and retail properties nationwide.

Lockaway Self Storage is based in San Diego. It will rebrand the Michener site under its operating name.

Virtus Real Estate Capital, a real estate private equity firm, has acquired AAA Storage at 15814 Mueschke Road in Cypress, Texas. The 61,250-square-foot facility is the second self-storage acquisition in the Houston area and fifth in Texas for the Austin, Texas-based firm that is actively building out the portfolio in its home state.

"This site is located in the middle of one of the fastest growing ZIP codes in the state and stands to benefit from the strength of Houstons economy, a population experiencing significant growth, and the expansion of key infrastructure projects in the northwest corridor. All of these elements make the property a prime target for Virtus," said Scott Humphreys, acquisitions manager.

Originally built in 2008, AAA Storage Mueschke underwent a significant expansion in 2012 that doubled the facilitys size to 417 units.

Uncle Bobs Management has been hired to run the facility's onsite operation. The Cypress site is its 45th store in the Houston area.

Since its inception in 2003, Virtus has acquired more than $2 billion in commercial real estate assets, including more than $100 million in self-storage. The companys strategy is to acquire commercial niche properties that serve the high-growth segments of the U.S. population, including medical offices, self-storage, senior living and student housing. Virtus is actively seeking opportunities to acquire self-storage properties in its target markets.

AAA Storage owns and operates self-storage facilities throughout Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. The company's facilities offer climate control and boat/RV storage. Many of its locations are also Approved Postal Providers, providing a variety of packing and shipping services including stamps and FedEx shipping.

Uncle Bobs Management is owned by Sovran Self Storage Inc., a real estate investment trust in the business of acquiring and managing self-storage facilities. Headquartered in Buffalo, N.Y., Sovran is one of the largest self-storage operators in the country, with facilities across 25 states. The company ranked No. 5 on the Inside Self-Storage 2013 Top-Operators List.

By Robert Madsen

Summer 2013 is now in the books, and a recap of self-storage activity in Canada would appear typical for the season. But if you peel this onion, youll find the Canadian industry broke ground on some very new terrain. From court action to Hollywood hopefuls, heres insight from the Canadian Self Storage Association (CSSA) about local happenings that continue to take shape.

CSSA Takes CRA to Court

While Canadians enjoyed a gorgeous summer, the CSSA legal team was hard at work preparing its case against the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). In 2009, the CRA took one particular self-storage operator to task, assessing fines and penalties on his seven-year-old, 450-unit facility. Total expenses, including accounting and legal fees, were in excess of $500,000. Eventually, the operator had to sell the business to cover his costs.

For the first and only time, the CRA cited a decades-old tax law to claim that this very competitive and active self-storage operation was truly operating as a passive business. The fact that the operator had an extremely busy day-to-day operation involving unit rentals and vacates and other sales activity to keep his facility full and profitable seemed to fall on deaf ears. Claiming the operator had been incorrectly filing his taxes, the CRA charged him three years of back taxes and other fines.

The CSSA is intent on going to court to set a precedent that establishes, once and for all, that self-storage is a very active enterprise. A win will allow the association to lobby the national government and CRA to correct the tax law so it properly reflects our business operation. This will ensure self-storage operators are taxed at more favorable rates that better recognize their daily contributions to the economy.

The court dates will likely be set for next spring. Canadian self-storage operators are encouraged to contact the CSSA administrative office and make a donation to this ever-important campaign.

Property-Assessment Victory, Concerns Continue

Self-storage operators in Ontario breathed a sigh of relief this year as they stepped forward to pay their property taxes. Relief came from a CSSA-led battle to maintain property assessments on the current cost approach for appraising real estate.

The Municipal Property Assessment Corp. (MPAC) continues to look for justification to move to an income approach, which would result in significant consequences to property assessments and, ultimately, taxes. Moreover, this approach would heavily penalize well-run storage operations that have been able keep costs low and revenue in place during already trying times. The attempted shift would be extremely backward.

The CSSA Ontario Property Tax Committee continues to provide guidance on the issue. MPAC is now taking a softer approach and encouraging self-storage facilities to submit their information on a voluntary basis. The CSSA reminds operators that they have rights, and those in Ontario are advised to speak with the association to find the best way to proceed. By working together, operators can help to ensure property taxes are calculated in a more fair and equitable manner.

Storage Wars Comes to Canada

The first of 36 episodes of "Storage Wars Canada" premiered on Aug. 29. The show, which originally started in California in 2010, has finally made its way north, with all the current episodes filmed in Ontario. Reports of significant fanfare have already been noted, and the filming portion has been off to a good start.

 

With an all-new, all-Canadian cast, the show has been generating activity and resulting in greater attention at Ontario self-storage auctions. Time will tell if the show can create a similar buzz to that of its U.S. counterpart.

Lien Sales: Best Practices = Best Defense

With the advent of "Storage Wars Canada," theres no better time for the first release of the "CSSA Liens Sales and Best Practices Guide." Given that Canada operates without industry-specific lien laws, the CSSA has put together a best-practices guide and checklist. When integrated with the contract law in a facilitys lease and put into operational practice, it will be an operator's strongest ally in conducting fair and proper lien sales.

Once the guide is released, operators will be encouraged to have their own attorney review the practices and put them into alignment with their tenant contracts and facility practices. By assisting facilities with clear process and purpose, the CSSA believes the industry can have a fair but effective way to deal with tenants who default from the terms of their contracts. The first edition was presented at the CSSA Alberta Conference on Oct. 24  in Red Deer, Alberta.

Development Returns Slow and Steady

Self-storage construction and conversions are returning at a slow and steady pace since the heyday of pre-2008. Certainly, theres been some success in new-facility lease-ups, but the industry focus and activity has been more concentrated on improving the performance of existing businesses.

Construction starts remain well off pre-recession levels. In fact, there are several facilities built in 2006 and later that are still struggling to stabilize. For this reason, financing is available but often remains focused on borrowers with good financials and strong self-storage experience.

In the end, 2013 has been very active with some of these new Canadian industry milestones. Still, theres much to be done. The court battle looms, and the CSSA works hard to get important information out to the industry from coast to coast.

Robert Madsen is president of the U-Lock Mini Storage Group and a director of the Canadian Self Storage Association. Born into the industry, he has more than 25 years of professional self-storage experience. Madsen started in the business with plunger, broom and hammer in hand, progressing to manager and, ultimately, executive. He is also a moderator for the Self-Storage Talk online community, going by the username Madman. For more information, visit www.selfstorage.ca .

Wes Snyder, the longtime police chief in Cleveland, Tenn., announced his sudden retirement Dec. 6 after evidence surfaced that he had been conducting an extramarital affair with the executive director of a local nonprofit organization inside a self-storage unit at Rhodes Climate Controlled Storage.

The unit belonged to MainStreet Cleveland, an organization dedicated to the revitalization and promotion of the citys historic downtown area. Security video captured Snyder and MainStreets Sharon Marr visiting the unit together several times in November and early December for about 60 to 90 minutes at a time.

According to news reports, several personal items were found inside the unit, including an area rug, a blanket and pillows. Other items included a bottle of brandy, baby wipes, paper towels, a handheld mirror and a hairbrush.

Employees at the self-storage facility said they found evidence that the unit was being occupied during business hours, which is a violation of its rental agreement, according to a written statement from Rhodes Storage. The company alerted authorities and then cooperated with the ensuing investigation, which included handing over video surveillance footage.

We have a zero-tolerance policy for this type of behavior in our facilities and strongly feel that appropriate action was taken, Rhodes officials said in the companys statement. It is our number one priority to provide safe, clean, secured storage for our valued customers.

Snyder is married and has served for 33 years on the Cleveland police force, including nearly a decade as chief. Marr is single. Both offered apologies in front of the city council last week.

I made a terrible mistake with a very dear and very good friend, Snyder told the council. It plunged all of us into circumstances that are horrible, to say the least. I take full responsibility and complete responsibility for my actions. Without a doubt I have used poor judgment in this matter. So I stand here today and I will ask you for your forgiveness.

This is a very personal matter that has played out in a horrific way, and we are just going to heal and move through it, Marr said. Please accept my sincerest apologies.

Joe Burton, president of MainStreet, said the organization is conducting its own investigation. The city is a major stockholder of the organization, providing MainStreet with office space and an annual donation of $25,000.

The operating partnership of CubeSmart, a self-storage real estate investment trust (REIT), has priced an underwritten public offering of $250 million of 4.375 percent senior unsecured notes due Dec. 15, 2023. CubeSmart L.P. priced the notes at 98.995 percent of the principal amount to yield 4.501 percent to maturity. The notes are fully and unconditionally guaranteed by CubeSmart, company officials said in a press release. The offering is expected to close on Dec. 17, and is subject to customary closing conditions.

The net proceeds from the offering are expected to be $245.4 million after deducting the underwriting discount and estimated transaction expenses payable by the company. The operating partnership intends to use the net proceeds to repay outstanding debt under the unsecured term loan portion of its credit facility maturing in 2014, and a portion of debt in connection with the financing of the REITs recent acquisition of 35 Texas self-storage facilities and one property in North Carolina.

The 36-property portfolio was purchased from Private Mini Storage Inc. for $326.2 million. CubeSmart completed the acquisition through a newly formed joint venture with an affiliate of Heitman LLC for an aggregate purchase price of $315.7 million. Each contributed capital equal to their 50 percent ownership in the venture. One facility in Houston was purchased by CubeSmart for $10.5 million.

Wells Fargo Securities LLC, Jefferies LLC, and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. acted as joint book-running managers for the public offering. Barclays Capital Inc., RBS Securities Inc., Regions Securities LLC, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Inc., and U.S. Bancorp Investments Inc. acted as co-managers for the offering.

Based in Wayne, Pa., CubeSmart owns or manages 518 self-storage facilities across the United States and operates the CubeSmart Network, which consists of more than 700 additional self-storage facilities.

By Julie Scott

In the business world, reputation is everything. Large corporations spend billions of dollars on public-relations firms to enhance, and sometimes defend, their public standing. Reputation is critical to a self-storage business, too. A couple of bad Yelp or Google+ reviews, or a few disparaging comments in an online blog or on Angies List, can severely damage or cripple the facility's success.

We found a great way to help us understand the reputation of our business, City Center Self Storage in Pittsburgh. First, I consolidated our online reviews from websites such as SpareFoot.com, Yelp and eMove to see what people were saying about us and how we can continue to provide first-rate customer service. Then I entered them all into a tool called Wordle and created a word cloud.

Think of it as a visual representation of your reputation. Its really easy to create. All you have to do is cut and paste your online reviews into their Web application. The larger the font size, the more often the word occurred. As you can see from the graphic, the most commonly used words to describe our facility include helpful, service, recommend, great and excellent.

I found another self-storage business with not-so-stellar reviews and put its online reviews into Wordle, too. Which words jump out? Scammed, bad, frustrating, rodents and annoying.

Inspiring Customers

Providing great service isnt the result of what we learned at a seminar or from working at other self-storage facilities. In fact, weve only been in business for a year. So how did we manage to jump into self-storage and impress people to the point that they took the time to write about their experience with us? What motivated the customers who liked us so much that they even left a video testimonial?

I believe the most important reason were able to keep our tenants happy is we care. Moving is stressful. Life situations that lead people to store items are sometimes a result of a positive change, but just as often it's the opposite. Peoples lives are occasionally turned upside down, and we do whatever we can to help them and make the process go smoothly. Whether its providing a moving van or sharing other self-storage options in our "Pittsburgh Storage Price and Value Report," which lists facilities, features and prices, we take time to explain every step and listen to their needs. Remember: Be kind because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

We also ask our customers for suggestions and feedback and treat them honestly and fairly. If something doesnt go right, we take responsibility, offer a sincere apology and do everything we can to make it up to them.

We believe in our Pittsburgh self-storage business and are proud of it. It shows in our attitude, our online reputation and, most important, in the words of our customers.

Julie Scott has been a part-time employee at City Center Self Storage for approximately eight months. Shes a full-time copy editor for many publications in the Pittsburgh area. To reach her, e-mail [email protected]; visit www.citycenterselfstorage.com .