The Arizona Self Storage Association (AZSSA) will hold its 12th annual conference and tradeshow May 17-19 at the Marriott Buttes Hotel in Tempe, Ariz. The event theme is “Survivor: Self-Storage,” with a focus on helping facility owners and managers discover the tools and methods required to navigate through challenging economic times.
 
The event will include manager training, owner-specific sessions, more than a dozen roundtable discussions, vendor exhibits, interactive facility tours, and “Sales & Marketing Boot Camp II,” presented by Tom Litton of Litton-Property Management Inc. The three informative owner sessions are “2009 Market Survey,” “Wage and Hour Issues for Self-Storage,” and “Self-Storage Financing Update.”
 
Founded in1996, the Arizona Self-Storage Association AZSSA was created to strengthen the self-storage industry in Arizona, promote professional standards and quality, and present a unified voice on issues affecting the industry in the state and in its communities. The association currently has more than 500 facility and vendor members.

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GE Capital Corporate Finance lended an $85 million asset-backed term loan to U-Haul Inc. for the refinance of an existing securitization facility. Funding was provided through GE Capital Corporate Finance's bank affiliate, GE Capital Financial Inc.
 
"With the recent uncertainty in the credit markets, we value and are very appreciative of GE's responsiveness in developing an excellent financing solution that met all of our financing needs," said Gary Horton, U-Haul corporate treasurer.
 
Founded in 1945, Phoenix-based U-Haul rents trucks and trailers and offers self-storage units through a network of nearly 1,450 company-operated moving centers and approximately 14,500 independent U-Haul dealers.
 
GE Capital Corporate Finance is one of the largest providers of asset-based cash flow and structured loans and leases for mid-size and large U.S. businesses.  
 
Source: MarketWatch, GE Capital Provides $85 Million to U-Haul

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Maine Legislative Document 1499, “An Act to Protect Confidential Consumer Records in Self-Service Storage Facilities,” has been passed by the Business Research and Economic Development Committee. The Maine Self Storage Association (MeSSA) has worked with the state legislature to craft and amend this new bill pertaining to the handling of third-party personal records in self-storage.
 
After a recent review of the bill, the BRED Committee asked MeSSA to work with the Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection to agree on appropriate language for the bill. At the session on Feb. 9, association president Rhonda Hallett Pope answered many questions regarding self-storage operation and leases as well as the association’s stance on the bill. After some senators expressed concern about the bill, amendments were made, after which it passed the committee unanimously. MeSSA expects the bill to pass the House and Senate without further debate.
 
Among the amendments made to the bill is that it no longer requires self-storage operators to ask customers if they are storing records via their lease. In addition, when a customer defaults and the operator cuts the lock on the tenant’s unit, the operator may inspect the contents to check for personal information without liability. If the operator believes there to be personal information contained in the unit, he can destroy the information without liability. The operator can also ask buyers who find personal information within a unit they have purchased to return it to the operator.

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Westy Self Storage helped Share Joy International, a non-profit organization based in Ridgefield, Conn., collect more than 1,000 boxes for Haiti’s relief efforts.

Westy collected donations from 17 of its facilities in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, and had all donations delivered to Westy in Wilton, Conn.

Volunteers spent a few weeks sorting through all the donated items including clothing for all ages, linens, towels, hygiene products and more. The packages will be loaded into a container and onto a ship and sent to Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

On Jan. 12, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, costing the lives of more than 50,000 people. Tens of thousands of people were left homeless and in need of immediate aid and assistance.
 
Source:  The Ridgefield Press,  Haiti Help Continues With a Thousand Boxes of Supplies

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A-1 Self Storage, an operator of self-storage facilities throughout California, has partnered with Serving Hands International to distribute more than 1,000 tarps to needy families in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, whose homes aren’t built to withstand harsh winter storms and conditions. Many of these homes were poorly built, often times with recycled or scrap materials.
 
Serving Hands International is a public, non-profit, tax-exempt organization. A-1 has partnered with the organization on numerous charitable projects.
 
A-1 Self Storage has 17 locations in the greater San Diego County area and more than 40 locations across California. A-1 is the self-storage division of the Caster Cos., a third-generation, family-owned company headquartered in Southern California since 1959.

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Wisconsin is one step closer to improving its self-storage lien law. Assembly Bill 707 made it through the Assembly Committee on Jobs, the Economy and Small Business without opposition last week. AB707 significantly improves self-storage lien-sale notification procedures, supports facility operators with a value-limitation measure, and limits exposure to litigation involving non-tenants. The measure also redefines what constitutes a reasonable auction sale as one that includes three or more bidders.
 
Lisa Chiappetta, member of the national Self-Storage Association’s board of directors, has been instrumental in promoting the legislation. Wisconsin is one of several states working to improve obsolete self-storage lien laws during the 2010 session.

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Morningstar Mini-Storage opened a new four-story self-storage facility in February at the intersection of West Tyvola Road and South Tryon St. in Charlotte, N.C. The facility is located near Steele Creek, Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, as well as the new City Park mixed-use community, formerly the site of the Charlotte Coliseum.

Morningstar Mini-Storage of Tyvola Road features 691 climate-controlled self-storage units totaling approximately 70,000 rentable square feet with units available in sizes from 5-by-5 to 10-by-30. The facility also features two large elevators and a special loading area.

Morningstar of Tyvola will be part of a new commercial development called City Crossing. The project is being developed by Afshin Ghazi and Seth Wilfong. The project will consist of an additional 100,000 square feet of retail/restaurant/office uses, and the site improvements for the development have just been completed.

The facility is owned by Morningstar Properties LLC, in its joint venture with Harrison Street Real Estate Capital LLC of Chicago. This is the fourth Morningstar Mini-Storage hs opened in the Charlotte area in the last 14 months.

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The Florida Self Storage Association will present two free education sessions at the Marriott Courtyard in Ft. Myers, Fla., on March 12. The first hour of each three-hour session, presented by Nyle Wells of Storage Auction Protection Services, will focus on self-storage lien sales. The remaining two hours will be an open-forum Q&A with a panel consisting of Rick Yonis, president of FSSA, Lew Pollack of StoreSmart Development, and Matthew Van Horn of Cutting Edge Self Storage.
 
The FSSA is a non-profit organization comprised of individuals and business people who have an interest in the self-storage industry in Florida. 

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Public Storage, a real estate investment trust, announced operating results for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2009.

Net income for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2009, was $187.7 million compared to $162 million for the same period in 2008, representing an increase of $25.7 million. This increase is primarily due to a $25.6 million aggregate reduction in depreciation and amortization and equity share of depreciation expense.

Revenue for the same store facilities decreased 3.9 percent, or $13.8 million in the fourth quarter ended as compared to the same period in 2008, due to a 3.8 percent reduction in realized rent per occupied square foot, combined with a 0.5 percent reduction in average occupancies.

Net income allocable to the common shareholders for the fourth quarter was $117.5 million or $0.70 per common share on a diluted basis compared to $121.5 million or $0.72 per common share for the same period in 2008, representing a decrease of $4 million or $0.02 per common share on a diluted basis.

This decrease is primarily due to a $33.9 million reduction in earnings allocated to preferred shareholders in the quarter associated with the repurchase of preferred securities, offset partially by the net impact of the factors described above.
 
Source:  MarketWatch,  Public Storage Reports Results for the Fourth Quarter 

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Storage West Self Storage, a regional self-storage chain with 44 storage facilities in Arizona, California and Nevada, named Don Willis to the newly created position of director of sales and marketing. Willis has held the position of director of marketing at Storage West for the past 10 years.

“I am very excited about my new position and the responsibilities that come with it,” Willis said.  “For the past 10 years I have felt like someone writing the plays but with a different coach running them. Now I get to both design and execute the plays."

Willis has an extensive background in sales management. Past positions include director of sales and marketing for Krueger Technology, a semiconductor related-company, and the regional sales manager for Intermountain Merchandising, a regional toy wholesaler.

"We are implementing a new sales program that will focus on the community of renters at Storage West,” Willis said. "The storage industry has developed a sales strategy of extremely low initial move-in costs; some companies are even offering the first month for free or just a dollar. We have found when we’ve offered these types of move-in specials we’ve built a very poor community of renters."

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