Federal Capital Partners (FCP), a Chevy Chase, Md.-based real estate investment company, has partnered with Self Storage Zone, an Orlando, Fla.-based operator and developer of self-storage facilities, to convert a former food bank into a three-story self-storage operation. The redevelopment of the former Capital Area Food Bank in the Brookland submarket of Washington, D.C., is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2014 and will comprise 78,600 square feet and 1,034 units.

"We've studied the self-storage business extensively, and our evaluation really concluded that it's a business that offers attractive risk-adjusted returns," said Drew Odabashian, vice president of commercial acquisitions for FCP. "When you look at the real estate landscape as a whole, it was something that was really compelling to us."

The two companies acquired the building last year for approximately $5 million. The conversion project is expected to cost about $11.5 million.

The property, at 645 Taylor St. N.E., is one block from Catholic University and six blocks from the Brookland/CUA Metro station. FCP is pleased to be underway in partnership with a top self-storage operator in an excellent location, Odabashian said. We believe there are continued opportunities in this region and throughout the mid-Atlantic [states].

Once completed, the self-storage facility will serve nearby residents who have previously needed to travel outside the District of Columbia for storage services, said Diane Tipton, a principal with Self Storage Zone, which currently operates four facilities in the Washington, D.C., area. We look forward to completing the project and introducing our wide range of services to the residents of Northeast D.C., she said.

Self Storage Zone also has four self-storage facilities in Florida. Since 1995, the company has developed or acquired and managed approximately 3.8 million square feet in 36 self-storage projects in Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Virginia. It is actively seeking new development opportunities in Washington, D.C.

FCP has invested in or financed more than $3 billion in assets since its founding in 1999. The company is seeking debt and equity investments in commercial and residential real estate throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.

South Shore Self Storage in Lynbrook, N.Y., recently sold for $2.1 million to Omega Self Storage, which operates four other facilities in Long Island, N.Y., and New Jersey. This former industrial building in Nassau County was converted to a 29,158-square-foot climate-controlled self-storage facility that also offers 13,200 square feet of parking. It sold at a 9.5 percent cap rate, according to the Argus Self Storage Sales Network.

The in-town location offers good exposure and heavy traffic, Argus said in a press release. Omega saw the upside potential of this location and intends to update the facility.

The seller was represented in the transaction by Linda Cinelli of LC Realty, a broker affiliate who represents Argus in North New Jersey and the New York City/Long Island markets.

The sale was financed with a Small Business Administration loan through M&T Bank.

Doug Hunt, owner of six Access Self Storage facilities in Texas, was recently presented with the Rocky Strickland Community Enhancement Award from the Lancaster (Texas) Chamber of Commerce. Hunt was recognized for this commitment to the Lancaster area and his support of the city's charitable organizations last Saturday at the chamber's awards banquet and gala.

I was shocked. I really did not expect it at all," said Hunt, who has partnered with multiple organizations in the Dallas/Forth Worth area to give back to the communities in which his self-storage facilities do business. When asked if the award will motivate him to do more good works, Hunt said, Absolutely. Not that we've ever felt that what we were doing was wasted, but it is really nice to have someone else tell us it makes a difference.

Access Self Storage is headquartered in Lancaster, and much of the company's philanthropic efforts are focused on the area. Hunt has been previously recognized for charitable work by the Lancaster Education Foundation and the Lancaster Outreach Center.

Hunt is a co-chair of the Texas Self Storage Association's Fundraiser Committee, which regularly raises funds for the Shriners Hospitals for Children in Galveston, Texas. He's also the owner of Owners Management Co. Inc., a third-party management company serving self-storage owners.

Access Self Storage has six locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. The operation's website features a "Community" tab, which highlights contests, events and other community outreach.

Maryland Gov. Martin OMalley signed an amended self-storage lien-law bill May 2 that updates the states lien-auction procedures. The legislation (Senate Bill 634) includes the allowance of default notifications sent by e-mail, the enabling of operators to have stored vehicles towed after default exceeds 60 days, and the lawful implementation of monthly late fees at $20 per month or 20 percent of the monthly rent, whichever is greater.

The new law also reduces the number of required default-tenant notifications from two to one. Currently, self-storage operators must issue two separate notices, with the final notice sent by Certified Mail. The new language stipulates that operators can send a default notification by e-mail as long as it is written into the tenants rental agreement. Operators will be required to send a follow-up notification via verified mail if they do not receive a response to an e-mail or confirmation of e-mail delivery.

All new updates to the law will go into effect on Oct. 1.

The Maryland Self Storage Association (MDSSA), an affiliate of the national Self Storage Association (SSA), pushed to update the lien law. Todd Manganaro, president of MDSSA, and Tim Dietz, senior vice president of government relations for the SSA, attended the governors signing.

The bill was one of 266 bills signed by OMalley. It was included among measures to repeal the death penalty, prevent cyberbullying and improve access to voting.

Bob Copper and Sue Haviland, partners in the industry consulting firm Self Storage 101, have released a new blog at http://blog.selfstorage101.com. They've also announced the release of a new book, "The Complete Self Storage Handbook," available via the company website.

The first blog installment, posted by Copper, focuses on "My Top Ten Pet Peeves for Self-Storage Managers." Readers are invited to comment. New posts will be published periodically.

Written with independent self-storage facility owners in mind, the new handbook will teach readers how to:

• Rent more space using professional sales skills
• Maximize collections using highly effective systems and techniques
• Increase operational effectiveness and maximize facility value using a facility audit and operational review
• Increase revenue and asset value using proven revenue-management systems
• Get it all done with highly effective time-management skills

The book is available for $49.95.

Self Storage 101 specializes in operational improvement, training, audits, feasibility and market studies, and due diligence.

A self-storage consultant and facility owner, Copper has worked with hundreds of owners and managers to improve sales, collections and operations. He focuses on strategic growth, staff effectiveness, marketing, asset-value improvement and acquisitions. Hes a frequent contributor to "Inside Self-Storage" magazine and the Inside Self-Storage World Expo.

Haviland is the owner of Haviland Storage Services. She has more than 20 years of industry experience, including serving as a site manager up to vice president of operations at Extra Space Storage and Price Self Storage. She has experience in employee relations, training, auditing, software conversions and operational policies and procedures.

Uncle Bob's Self Storage, the operating brand of real estate investment trust Sovran Self Storage Inc., will participate this month in the annual National Association of Letter Carriers "Stamp Out Hunger" food drive. On May 11, Uncle Bob's locations will serve as collection points for donations, which will be delivered to a local food pantry.

Now in its 21st year, Stamp Out Hunger has become the nations largest single-day food drive benefitting Feeding America, the nations largest domestic hunger-relief organization. To participate, U.S. residents are encouraged to leave a sturdy bag containing non-perishable food items next to their mailbox for the mail carrier to collect.

Uncle Bobs is proud to support an effort that plays such a pivotal role in stocking food banks and pantries during the summer months when children are out of school and the need for food assistance rises, said Diane Piegza, vice president of corporate communications for Uncle Bobs Self Storage.

The drive's spokesperson is Nick Cannon, an American actor, comedian, rapper and radio/television personality.

Information about this year's drive can be found at www.helpstampouthunger.com or www.facebook.com/StampOutHunger.

Sovran operates more than 470 facilities in 25 states.

STORE Self Storage & Wine Storage will be the host of this summers weekly Green Market in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Held outdoors at city hall for most of the year, the farmers market will be combined with STORE Self Storage & Wine Storages existing community event, which has been held every Saturday for the past two summers.

Kicking off May 12, the Green Market will include 55 vendors with booths on the first floor of the five-story indoor facility at 11010 N. Military Trail. Scheduled for Sundays through out the summer months, the market is open to the public from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and will include food, music, artwork, jewelry and other merchandise. Admission is free.

Brothers Jon and Joel Channing, owners of STORE Self Storage & Wine Storage, told the source they were drawing about 400 people to their weekly summer event. Merrill Newman, who has sold soy candles at the STOREs event for the past two summers, said he expects the new partnership to bring in more people.

According to the source, the agreement between the city and self-storage facility states the city receives the rental income from the vendors, which is $20 to $45 per vendor each week. In addition, the Channings will spend $10,000 to market this summers Green Market. Jon Channing said the influx of people will enable the operator to market the facility to potential renters.

The final stages of construction are underway for Boston Seaport Self Storage, a four-story facility near the Boston Convention Center in the revitalized Seaport District of Downtown Boston. Construction began last fall, and the facility is on track to open this summer.

The facility at 380 E St. will feature more than 1,000 climate-controlled storage units and a 140 kW solar-photovoltaic system. Amenities include a business center with Wi-Fi, moving and packing supplies, and tenant insurance.

Were happy with the progress were making and excited to be developing our first self-storage project, which we think is going to be one of the nicest facilities in Boston, said Terry Conroy Jr., president of Conroy Development, the project developer.

Jim DiNardo of J. DiNardo Consulting in Reading, Mass., had been working with Conroy Development throughout the entitlement process. He was then hired by the company in September to manage the project to its completion and launch the firms self-storage practice. Im thrilled to be working with an experienced and committed developer like Conroy Development, and to be working on such a high-profile project in the heart of Bostons fastest-growing and hottest area, DiNardo said.

Based in Stoughton, Mass., Conroy Development is a full-service commercial real estate development and investment firm specializing in multi-family, office, industrial, data center and self-storage properties. The company is actively seeking additional self-storage development opportunities in the greater Boston area.

 

By Cat Lane

Blogging is a great way to market any business, including a self-storage property. Its understandable that while running his facility, a self-storage owner or manager might think there isnt much time to sit in front of a computer and re-tweet tweets, like pictures on Facebook or write blog posts. But the bottom line is, if you have a website, social sharing and blogging can really help your ranking in online searches and attract new customers. Here are some efficient and effective ways to add a blog to your facility website.

Google Alerts

If you own a self-storage business in Braintree, Mass., for example, create a Gmail account and set up a Google alert for any news with the keywords Boston self-storage. Youll be notified via e-mail any time Google spots something interesting about Boston self-storage. This can generate topic ideas for your blog posts. You can simply write an intro of 50 words, quote the article using 100 words and write a 50-word conclusion. This will keep your posts fresh and current, which is what your readers want.

Top-10 Lists

People love lists. The benefits of self-storage would be a good list, but there are many more topics you can probably come up with by just using a little imagination. Try conducting searches on Twitter or Pinterest for fresh ideas. Write a sentence for each listed topic and find a nice picture or two to add to the blog post.

Videos

People also love videos, and there are many ways to produce videos inexpensively and publish them to your blog. Use your smartphone to shoot walking tours of your facility and customer testimonials with your favorite clients. Incidentally, customer testimonials are still the best ways to establish credibility for your company.

When shooting video, keep away from traffic and make sure it isnt windy if youre outside. Also, be sure to speak loud and clear so your audience will hear your message. Bad audio can easily ruin a good video. Shooting the video in one good take also ensures it doesnt have to be edited.

Build Relationships

You need to build relationships with the people who read your blog. As simple as that sounds, its surprising how few bloggers do it well. The simplest and best way to build relationships is by responding directly to them whenever they post a good comment about one of your blogs. When others see you doing that, theyll realize youre engaged and caring, and theyre far more likely to keep reading what you're writing. Maybe they'll even jump in and post a comment or two.

Know Your Resources

There are many websites containing a roster of potential guest bloggers, so you dont even have to write your own posts. You just publish their blog and give them a link.

You can also create a newswire for your business. In the world of blogging, the equivalent of a newswire is an RSS feed. These feeds make it easier for people to follow your blog. They also widen its distribution and, therefore, grow your audience quite dramatically.

Lead the Conversation

One final tip is to make sure youre always leading your conversations in a new direction. Remember, people like to learn something new when they're reading a blog. As a business owner, you have a remarkable insight into many areas. The conversation is happening online. Do you want to lead it?

Cat Lane is operations manager for Lock It Up Self-Storage , which specializes in the San Jose, Calif., market and has seven Bay-area locations. The company features video tours of all its facilities on its website.

By Ariel Valli

The attractive use of color in self-storage building design can add an important dimension to the overall curb appeal of the finished structure. Most casual observers would agree the majority of buildings visible in everyday life look somewhat routine. A monotone and bland color scheme with little variation does little to improve a structure's appeal.

The exception to this uniform look along our streetscapes is often found in commercial retail buildings: fast food outlets, restaurants, theatres and shopping centers, for example. These types of projects rely on a stylish presentation, often including bold colors, to lure customers onto the premises. As a retail-type product, self-storage can definitely benefit by being designed to fit into this group.

So how do self-storage projects use design, including color, to get their image across to the renting public? There are three primary ways: through branding, building aesthetics and landscaping.

Color for Branding

Those of us working in the self-storage industry are familiar with the use of a specific color by a particular operator. Public Storage orange, Extra Space green, StorQuest Self Storage red and the blue-grey of A-American Self-Storage are good examples. All the buildings owned and operated by these entities consistently use these base colors in their advertising and buildings.

Architects designing projects for these operators are directed to include their image color prominently in the design. With the prevalence of tight design regulations in virtually every city and town across the country, the use of bright branding color is often closely controlled by the planning departments, planning boards and design-review committees that approve or disapprove projects at the land-use entitlement phase. While its often difficult to achieve large expanses of these colors on a project, its still very important to integrate the color into the projects accent elements, trim and signage.

Color and Building Aesthetics

Aside from using the attention-grabbing bright colors associated with branding, a self-storage designer must also use color creatively on the main building components such as walls and roofs. Contrast with branding colors is important, but so is complementing them with base colors that do not compete or clash. Warm colors associate well with colors in the earth-tone, brown themefrom light tan to darker yellows and browns. Cool colors associate well with non-chromatic colors such as off-white and the wide range of light to dark grays. Some of the coloring methods used by designers include:

Use of multiple colors on building walls. The long expanses of wall planes common to self-storage development can be articulated, or broken up, by using offsets in the wall planes, horizontally and vertically. This can be accomplished by changing materials and colors at projecting/receding wall planes, or by changing material and colors along a variable parapet height.

Long, undecorated walls are simply not acceptable for self-storage projects on quality commercial streets. Wall articulation can be improved by the varied use of color. Stucco color banding is a good example of this. While the underlying stucco material can remain the same, the colors can change from place to place on the wall.

Use of color on building-massing components. Building articulation can often be achieved by the use of large tower elements that house the office component. Contrasting accent colors can be used on these tower elements to differentiate themselves from the colors of surrounding wall planes.

Use of accent colors on building-trim components. Brighter accent colors can often be used on building-trim components, such as fascias and barges at roof edges, storefront glazing systems at the office, and canopies that project over entry doors.

Use of color on roll-up doors. Roll-up doors are everywhere in storage projects. The use of color on these doors is a great opportunity to provide interest in a project. Although most municipalities will not allow doors to be visible from the street, opportunities exist to use colorful, faux image doors along the streetscape as a decorative element. Also, window placements on the upper floors of multi-story projects provide the opportunity to show the colorful interior doors in the interior hallways, often with bright accent lighting.

Use of color on roofs. While most storage projects have flat roofs due to their large size, tower elements are often used to articulate the office area, as mentioned above. These tower elements are smaller in mass than the self-storage buildings themselves, providing an opportunity to introduce roofs that can be made of a variety of materials. Metal roofs in particular can use bold colors to create visual interest.

Color in Landscaping

The final use of color is often in the hands of the landscape architect. Over the years, landscaping has become an increasingly important part of the design, review and approval process that all projects must go through. Its now common to have landscape buffers of 20 feet to 30 feet between the street and the buildings.

This area provides a great opportunity to install trees, shrubs, groundcovers and accent flowers that provide an interesting mix of sizes, shapes and colors. A good example of complementary design/landscaping interface is the use of brightly colored red and purple bougainvillea shrubs on tradition Mediterranean-themed projects in California and Florida. In just about any type of project design, the green color of trees in spring and summer, as well as the reds, yellows and golds of tree leaves in the fall, can be a welcome sight along any streetscape.

Restrictions to Using Color

As a result of the increasing restrictions of design options in many communities, developers and architects are often limited to safe design options that blend into the surrounding neighborhood. While staying within the reasonable boundaries of the community context can be a good thing, bold yet attractive architecture is discouragedand downright difficult to get approved.

As the principal designers of self-storage projects, architects are often directed to take the easy path of earth tones, earth tones and more earth tones. The direction may come from the developer, who wants the review process to be smoother, or it may come by mandate from the reviewing and approving jurisdictional entity. The result is the same in that opportunities for attractive colorful projects are ultimately limited.

The opportunities to push the envelope and strive for more meaningful and interesting self-storage projects are always there, even if somewhat limited by developer design direction or the politics of the design-review process. The imaginative use of color should be an important design consideration at the very start of the design process. The ability to successfully integrate color into the finished product will always result in the better curb appeal that all self-storage owners and operators prefer.

Ariel L. Valli is president and principal architect of Valli Architectural Group, which was founded in 1997 to provide specialized design services to the self-storage industry. Over the course of a 30-year career, Mr. Valli has been involved in 480 completed self-storage projects, primarily in the southwestern United States. Completed projects include numerous award-winners. For more information, call 949.349.1777; visit www.valliarch.com .