KJK Real Estate Management Inc. has broken ground on Lake Macatawa Storage in Holland Township, Mich. The 12-acre lot at 500 Douglas Ave. will comprise 72,000 square feet of self-storage space in nine buildings. The first two structures, totaling 16,000 square feet in 100 units, are nearly complete. This first phase is expected to open in the next 30 days, once asphalt and landscaping work are done, according to the source.

As phase two, KJK will construct a 10,000-square-foot building containing a management office and climate-controlled units, plus three additional structures that will raise storage capacity to 51,000 square feet. This portion is expected to be complete by year-end, said Kevin Kammeraad, president.

The third phase of the project will add three final structures to reach full operational capacity.

The facility will also include outdoor parking and storage areas for boats, RVs and other vehicles customers may not be able to store at their own residences, Kammeraad told the source. “We have approval to have outside storage, and the entire property will be fenced and gated, and surrounded by landscaping,” he said. “It looks rough at the current state, but it is coming together quickly.”

“It’s coming along, and we really look forward to serving the community,” Kammeraad added.

Source:
Holland Sentinel, Lake Macatawa Storage Coming to Holland

Self-storage developer John Wood is set to build a $5.5 million facility in Spokane, Wash. The property will comprise about 97,000 square feet of storage space in 450 units at 8502 W. Geiger Blvd., near Spokane International Airport. Construction is expected to be complete in October, according to the source.

Wood picked the site due to its central location and ability to serve the communities of Airway Heights, Cheney and Medical Lake, Wash. “We just thought we could tap into all of it. Easy access in and out,” he told the source. “It’s not something you visit every day.”

The site is just northwest of a large development expected to be an Amazon fulfillment center comprising 2.5 million square feet.

Wood previously developed A Better Storage Solution in Post Falls, Idaho, which he sold earlier this year. Permits for the Spokane project indicate the facility name as All Seasons Mini-Storage, but Wood indicated he may change it to Amazing Mini-Storage to loosely tie in with Amazon being a neighboring business.

Parts of Idaho and Spokane County, Wash., are among the hottest self-storage development markets in the Northwest, according to the “Journal of Business.”

Source:
The Spokesman-Review, Large Storage Development Planned Near Spokane Airport

Go Store It, which operates 21 self-storage facilities in seven states, has acquired Clover Hill Self-Storage in Richmond, Va. Although it’s the company’s first purchase of an existing facility in the state, it has two projects under construction in the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area. One site is near downtown while the other is in Midlothian, according to a press release.

The Clover Hill property at 16830 Hull Street Road comprises 42,000 square feet of storage space in 348 units. It also contains vehicle parking. Go Store It plans to add a two-story, climate-controlled building comprising 40,000 square feet.

“This acquisition presents a unique opportunity for Go Store It and gives us more scale in a target market. There is a big demand for quality storage, and the market has high barriers to entry. We look forward to upgrading the facility and getting started on the expansion,” said Neil Dyer, director of acquisitions.

The Richmond acquisition is the company’s 10th this year. Go Store It purchased Avondale Self Storage and Storage Port in Hendersonville, Tenn., last month. It also recently broke ground on two new projects in Woodfin, N.C., and Mt. Pleasant, S.C.

Based in Charlotte, N.C., Go Store It specializes in the acquisition, development and management of self-storage assets throughout the county. It currently has more 2 million square feet of storage space under management and construction. It’s an affiliate of Madison Capital Group LLC, which has offices in Charlotte, N.C., Charleston, S.C., and Nashville, Tenn.

Source:
PR Newswire, Go Store It Acquires Clover Hill Self Storage in Richmond, VA

Don Temple Storage U-Store & Lock in Long Beach, Calif., which proclaims to be Southern California’s first self-storage facility, celebrated its 50-year anniversary on July 7. A party to honor the milestone and facility owner Don Temple, who died in 2013 at age 85, was held at Long Beach Police Officers Association Park. Open to the public, the three-hour event included music from the Elm Street Band, the Aquarium on Wheels display from the Aquarium of the Pacific, the Long Beach Symphony Petting Zoo, refreshments and giveaways.

The event was attended by Sumer Temple, Don Temple’s daughter and the current facility owner. The celebration was more about thanking local residents for their support, she told the source. A flat-screen TV and laptop computer that displayed a video of her father’s story during the affair were given away as prizes afterward.

Born on Aug. 19, 1927, in Morris, Kan., Don Temple launched his entrepreneurial career at age 14, owning a business with his father in which he delivered blocks of ice and sold re-varnished oak iceboxes. He served in the U.S. Merchant Marines for three years and spent two years in the Navy during the Korean War.

Don Temple opened his first self-storage facility at 3750 E. Spring St., near Long Beach Airport, on July 7, 1968. He’s credited with building the nation’s first ground-up, multi-story storage project. He also co-founded real estate firm Bancap Self Storage Group Inc. and was inducted into the national Self Storage Association’s Hall of Fame in 2009. He owned or partnered in nine facilities during his industry career, including three at the time of his death.

Temple also established the Don Temple Family Charitable Foundation, which donates money to local causes focused on the arts, children, education and healthcare. “Don started this foundation because it was important for him to give back to the community that rented storage units from him in the past,” said Marlene Temple, his wife of 14 years and the foundation president.

In addition to his business interests, Don Temple was an avid pilot, owning 32 planes during his lifetime. He participated in the 1992 Around-the-World Air Rally, flying his own twin-engine Cessna while raising money for Community Hospital Long Beach.

Source:
Press-Telegram, Long Beach’s Don Temple Storage — Southern California’s First Self-Storage Facility — Marks 50 Years in Business

A joint venture between Live Oak Capital Partners, Lumpkin Development and MacArthur Holdings LLC will soon break ground on a 97,000-square-foot self-storage facility at 2625 Atlanta Highway in Athens, Ga. The property will include a three-story, 84,000-square-foot, climate-controlled building and 13,000 square feet of drive-up storage. In total, it’ll comprise more than 740 units. The property is expected to open next spring, according to a press release.

The site is near downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. “We are thrilled to be bringing this best-in-class storage facility to The Classic City,” said Brooks Lumpkin, owner of Lumpkin Development. “This will be the largest and closest class-A storage property to the booming downtown, and we believe it will be the largest, nicest and most accessible property in Athens-Clarke County.”

Founded in 2012, Live Oak is a real estate developer focused primarily on “niche property types and off-market” opportunities. Based in Atlanta, it has investment interests in self-storage, industrial, manufactured-housing and office properties.

Based in Pelham, Ala., Lumpkin Development operates more than 4 million square feet of commercial real estate in Alabama and Georgia.

MacArthur owns and develops real estate, primarily in New York City. Its portfolio includes hotel, multi-family, office and retail projects. It also owns commercial and industrial properties in Southern New Hampshire and has multi-family investments in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

StorageVault Canada Inc. has acquired two self-storage facilities and a portable-storage business in Ontario. The properties were purchased in three separate transactions for an aggregate $5.65 million. StorageVault now owns 28 locations in the Ontario market, according to a press release.

“The purchase of the portable-storage business allows StorageVault to enter into a different segment of the portable-storage market, which services mainly the construction industry,” the release stated.

The company has long offered PUPS-branded mobile-storage options. In 2015, as part of StorageVault’s agreement to acquire all the rights and assets of Cubeit Portable Storage Canada Inc. and nine storage facilities operated by affiliate Access Self Storage Inc., it required Access and Cubeit to purchase “all of the issued and outstanding shares in the capital of Canadian PUPS Franchises Inc.,” which is the master franchisor of the PUPS business.

The latest acquisitions were paid for with cash and through mortgage assumption.

StorageVault operates 152 self-storage facilities in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan. It’s portfolio of owned properties comprises 94 facilities.

Source:
Globe Newswire, StorageVault Acquires $5.7 Million of Storage Assets

Vehicle storage can be a lucrative profit center for many self-storage facilities. However, offering this service comes with additional risks, particularly if a tenant falls behind on the rent. Auctioning a boat, trailer or car isn’t a simple endeavor and often involves jumping through many hoops.

In a recent thread on Self-Storage Talk, the industry’s largest online community, a member is seeking advice for dealing with a tenant who has stopped paying rent to store her hot-dog food truck. The customer isn’t responding to outreach, and the vehicle doesn’t have any identification, further complicating the problem. What would you do in this situation? Share and get advice on storing (and evicting) vehicles from a storage property.

Go Store It, which operates 20 self-storage facilities in six states, has broken ground on two new projects. One is in Woodfin, N.C., a town in the Asheville Metropolitan Statistical Area, and the other is in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., a suburb just east of Charleston.

The company already operates three facilities in Asheville, N.C., and has another under development off Hendersonville Road. The new site, just north of downtown, will include more than 600 climate-controlled units, according to a press release.

The three-story Mt. Pleasant property on Gregorie Ferry Road will include more than 400 climate-controlled units. It’ll be the company’s third development in the city and its fifth in the Charleston, S.C., self-storage market. Go Store It has projects underway on Folly Road, Johnnie Dodds Boulevard and Maybank Highway as well as in the downtown area. It also recently opened a property on Long Point Road.  

Go Store It plans to break ground on five additional facilities this year in Cary and Charlotte, N.C., as well as Fredericksburg, Va., and Louisville, Ky. The company is also seeking acquisition and expansion opportunities nationwide.

Based in Charlotte, N.C., Go Store It specializes in the acquisition, development and management of self-storage assets throughout the county. It currently has more 2 million square feet of storage space under management and construction. It’s an affiliate of Madison Capital Group LLC, which has offices in Charlotte, Charleston, S.C., and Nashville, Tenn.

Source:
Bristol Herald Courier, Go Store It Breaks Ground on Two New Storage Developments in Asheville, NC and Mt Pleasant, SC

Storage Treasures LLC, which owns self-storage online-auction platform StorageTreasures.com, has acquired competing auction provider StorageStuff.Bid. As part of the transaction, StorageStuff auctioneers Cheli and Chris Rosa, a married couple, will officially join the team at OpenTech Alliance Inc., which manages the Storage Treasures website and is the company’s majority stakeholder, according to a press release.

“We have always had a great relationship with the folks at StorageStuff.Bid, and are very excited to now be on the same team,” said OpenTech CEO Robert Chiti. “With Cheli and Chris on board, we are the only online-auction company to have licensed auctioneers with licenses in all 50 states, which gives our customers a level of protection not available with other online-auction sites. They add a ton of credibility to what we’re doing, a wealth of knowledge, and valuable expertise as it pertains to lien laws for both traditional and online auctions.”

Cheli Rosa will be responsible for supporting StorageStuff customers as well as improving facility-manager and auction-buyer training programs. Chris Rosa will expand the company’s existing auction-review service. “In addition, we are going to rely on both of them to teach us how we can better support auctioneers with their live auctions,” Chiti said.

“We are proud of what we have accomplished at StorageStuff.Bid, but realized that it was going to be very difficult to compete with the level of investment OpenTech is making in StorageTreasures.com,” Cheli Rosa said. “The amount of money they spend on digital marketing, auction-buyer programs, customer service and technology innovations is staggering, so we felt joining forces was the right move. The one area they were weak was actual auction experience. Chris and I are filling that gap and bringing them our years of experience running both online and live auctions as well our professional auctioneer licenses.”

Storage Treasures expects to have all StorageStuff customers transitioned to its own platform within 90 days, at which time StorageStuff.Bid will be shut down. After the changeover, StorageTreasures.com will represent 8,500 facilities, 900,000 active buyers and 15,000 monthly auctions. To date, it has completed more than 1 million self-storage lien sales.

In March, two other self-storage auction websites merged: SelfStorageAuction.com and iBid4Storage.com. The combined entity promotes industry lien sales in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.

The companies have been active in offering service to more international markets. Launched in February 2017, SelfStorageAuction.com expanded to Australia and New Zealand last August, and announced its intention to serve the United Kingdom. Based in Toronto, iBid4Storage.com expanded to the U.S. in 2014. It partnered with Australia-based auction website iBidOnStorage.com.au in January 2017.

Founded in 2010, StorageTreasures.com identifies storage self-storage auctions and facilities in Canada and the United States, offering sale schedules and guidelines for auction hunters and site owners. Based in Phoenix, OpenTech acquired a major stake in the company in 2016. It also provides self-storage kiosks, call-center services and other industry technology.

Source:
EIN Presswire, StorageTreasures The Storage Industry's Leading Online Auction Platform Acquires StorageStuff.bid

 

“Safety is job No. 1.”

“Work smart. Work safe.”

“Lift with your legs, not your back.”

It’s hard to talk about safety without hearing these famous sayings. Unfortunately, accidents can and will happen. As self-storage operators, the most effective tools we can use to avoid them are training and preparation. Consider the following advice to keep everyone safe while on your property, including staff, tenants, contactors and other guests—always, no matter what’s happening at the site.

Operations Manual

You can’t teach someone common sense, but you can show him where to read about it. Your operations manual is your first line of defense against accidents and injuries. It should address even the most menial daily tasks, such as how to properly mop a floor. This’ll help employees avoid slips and falls, and missed work and wages. It’ll help the employer avoid workers’ compensation claims.

Communication

If work is being performed at the property, notify your tenants. Post information about what’s being done, where and when. Give them someone to contact in case of an issue. For example, post a sign on the office door with regular and after-hours phone numbers.

Also, let tenants know the location of emergency exits, fire extinguishers, fire alarms, sprinkler pulls, etc., in relation to their storage unit or the parking spot. Do this during the initial lease signing and via signage posted around the property.

Potential Hazards

Identify and be mindful of your self-storage property’s hazard zones, both temporary and permanent, as they have the potential to cause injury or lawsuits. These include:

• Anywhere work is being done
• Wet floors
• Electrical areas
• Damaged fences or doors
• Elevators
• Anywhere a light has gone out

Signage can be a great help in reducing liabilities in these areas. A sign reading “Wet floor” or “Watch your step” is one way of saying “Don’t do it!” Safety signs on breaker panels and electrical junctions are critical, especially when work is being done in those areas. Post cones or signage around extension cords, which are huge trip hazards.

Site Maintenance

It’s critical to ensure things on your property work properly and safely. There are a host of everyday items that can seem like a pain to fix but can cause injuries or lawsuits. These are just a handful that might need regular attention:

• Broken light fixtures
• Broken door latches
• Light-switch covers with sharp edges
• Weather-stripping hanging off a door

Loose roll-up doors need to be attended to immediately. If the spring isn’t adjusted properly, it can close without warning and hurt someone.

Watch out for wet surfaces. Keep a small mop or towels and a “Wet floor” sign close by to mark slick floors in your office and hallways. Using door mats on both sides of the office door will help.

Personal Protection

Keep personal-protection equipment handy for maintenance tasks and odd jobs. Most of these items are available at home-improvement stores. They include:

• Non-slip or even steel-toed boots for walking on metal rooftops
• Non-slip shoes for wet floors or walkways
• Knee pads
• Back brace or support belt
• Gloves
• Eye protection
• Face shield
• Hard hat or bump cap
• High-visibility vest
• Hearing protection

Wear long pants and sleeves if you think a job is going to get messy. You’ll be better protected from sparks, sharp corners, metal edges and tools.

Have a first-aid kit available in the office and even other buildings. Maybe store one in the HVAC closet or shop locker so it’s always close by. Keep one on the maintenance cart as well.

Ladders

There are right and wrong ways to use an extension ladder. The U.S. Occupational Health & Safety Administration offers excellent guidelines on ladder safety. For example, when using ladders outside, place safety cones around the area, with one on either side, and a bungee cord to secure the ladder to the roof or gutter. When not in use, secure the ladder in your workshop or on the maintenance cart or truck. When using ladders inside, fold and tuck them away when you take a break or go for a tool that’s farther than eye shot.

Children

When families store with you, sometimes the whole gang shows up to unload their goods or collect items from the unit. Kids riding their bicycles, playing with toys or otherwise running around your property creates the potential for accidents. It may seem rude to tell them they can’t skate or bike onsite, but it’s for everyone’s safety. This is a storage facility, not a playground, and a child on a skateboard is no match for a pickup truck.

Inclement Weather

Avoiding accidents during extreme weather is challenging enough without having to run out for supplies. Just getting to the store can be dangerous, so always keep seasonal materials on hand, before you need them. This might include salt for icy sidewalks, batteries, plywood, gasoline or drinking water, which can become scarce during the threat of a natural disaster.

Communicate with tenants via e-mail, phone or social media to advise them not to come to the site. Record it on your voicemail greeting. This will tell customers you care and the facility may not be safe.

Your tenants may get upset or even angry if you need to lock down because of weather, but they shouldn’t be at your site, particularly in the event of an evacuation. If a tree falls on a building or power lines get blown onto the property, I don’t need to tell you how bad that can be. After an event like a hurricane, tornado, flood, winter storm or even an earthquake, no one should be allowed onto the property until you know for certain it’s safe, secure and stable.

While the motto “Safety is everyone’s first job” still holds true, it’s ultimately up to us as self-storage operators to ensure our teammates, vendors and customers stay safe. If customers understand we’re looking out for them as people and not just tenants, they’ll feel much better about leaving their belongings with us.

Kevin J. Edwards joined Southeast Management Co. in 2016. He and his wife, Donna, are property managers for Plantation Storage and Plantation Wine Cellars in Bluffton, S.C. To reach him, call 843.815.8000; e-mail [email protected]; visit www.southeastmanagementcompany.com.