A firefighter who responded to a call at Simply Self Storage in Ormond Beach, Fla., on Sunday got sick after a chemical splashed on him at the scene.

Firefighter Bill Kimmy from Holly Hill, Fla., was assisting Ormond Beach firefighters at the self-storage facility when he found a 35-gallon drum smoking in one of the storage units. When the drum was doused with water, the chemical it contained splashed out onto Kimmys arm, causing respiratory difficulty and vomiting within 20 minutes.

Kimmy was taken to Halifax Health Medical Center, where he was stable but kept overnight for observation. The chemical to which he was exposed was some kind of ammonia product used to bleach air, according to the Ormond Beach Battalion Chief.

At 5:42 p.m. on Sunday, the fire department received reports of white smoke coming out of three or four units at the Simply Self Storage facility on Yonge Street.

Simply  Self Storage has facilities in 15 states and Puerto Rico. It has nine facilities in Florida.

BMC Capital LP, a provider of self-storage, commercial real estate and Small Business Administration loans, hired two new employees, Andy Seed and Tom Swanson.

Seed will work out of the companys Denver office. He has more than 18 years of mortgage banking experience. Swanson was hired as a vice president in the Phoenix office, and has more than 25 years of experience in commercial real estate lending. He was most recently employed with LaJolla Bank as a commercial loan officer. 

Headquartered in Dallas, BMC Capital has offices around the country and finances real estate in all 50 states.

The U-Haul Co. of Western Arizona purchased Laveen Self Storage in Laveen, Ariz.

The facility, 4410 West Southern Ave., will be rebranded U-Haul Moving and Storage of Laveen. It features more than 750 storage units, 199 of which are climate-controlled, and offers more than 98,700 square feet of self-storage. U-Haul Moving and Storage of Laveen is a single-story structure providing U-Haul customers with their choice of indoor, climate-controlled, outdoor, drive-up storage and boat/RV storage. 

"We are excited to have the opportunity to expand our operations in Laveen and look forward to continuing our long-standing relationships with local communities throughout Arizona," said Jason Turcotte, president, U-Haul Co. of Western Arizona.

U-Haul Moving and Storage of Laveen will offer a wide variety of environmentally friendly packing supplies, including boxes made out of recyclable materials, 100-percent biodegradable packing peanuts and moving pads made from recycled denim. Also on site will be a Take a Box/Leave a Box display, which allows customers or anyone in the community to leave moving boxes or unwanted electronics boxes for another customer to reuse for free.

Established in 1945, U-Haul has 36 million square feet of storage space at nearly 1,100 owned and managed facilities throughout North America.

By Jost Lunstroth

The needs and desires of someone seeking to store their valued wine collection at a self-storage facility are very different from those of someone looking for traditional self-storage space. Wine collectors can be young or old, wealthy or struggling to pay their bills, or own hundreds and hundreds of cases or just a few more than they can properly store at home. Even with all these differences, wine connoisseurs share an invisible bond: a love of wine and the awareness that it must be properly stored.

Wine collectors want the same basic services as the self-storage customereasy access, clean and safe facilities, and reasonable prices. But they also want comfort, the comfort that comes from knowing their precious collection is protected from thieves and fluctuating temperatures. They get this comfort from knowing the facility operator has correctly completed the technical aspects of the wine-storage area, and emergency operating plans and security are in place. Im not talking about a fancy door or a painting of Tuscany on the wall. Successful wine storage begins with the right design.

Maintaining Climate

The technical aspect of wine storage is pretty straightforward but not trivial to properly execute. The most critical component is maintaining the correct climate, including temperature and humidity. The generally accepted climate for proper wine storage is 55 degrees and around 60 percent relative humidity. The difficulty of maintaining this climate can vary from one region to anotherwhat works in a cold region like Michigan might not work in hot and dry Arizona or hot and humid Louisianabut the core challenges are the same.

One challenge is selecting and installing refrigeration equipment that can maintain the desired climate. Another is building a space that can separate the two climatesthat of the wine-storage area and then the surrounding areas.

Traditional refrigeration may not always be the best equipment to use for one major reason: Standard refrigeration equipment usually removes humidity as part of the cooling process, so you run the risk of having a space with the correct temperature but low humidity. A humidifier may be required to add humidity back into the space.

Refrigeration equipment designed specifically for wine storage is available, and most wine-storage builders recommend it. It may cost more up front, but it will save you time and headaches in the long run. This equipment is designed to cool the space in a way that doesnt remove humidity.

Wine collectors also want to be assured you can maintain the proper climate even if theres an equipment failure. Your wine-storage area must have a redundant system for emergencies or outages. Customers will be comforted when you describe the backup refrigeration system to them. It shows you truly understand the need to protect their prized wine collections.

Preventing Moisture

Once youve designed the ideal refrigeration system, the next step is building the space to avoid moisture-related problems. A wine-storage area is just like your home refrigerator; it will have a different climate than the surrounding area, and the two climates cannot meet.

If your refrigerator door is left open just a bit, condensation develops on the items inside. If the door is left wide open, the refrigerator motor will burn out since it never turns off. You dont want moisture on your wine-room walls, so make sure your space is sealed tight.

Fail-Safes and Security

Once you have a wine room thats properly built so theres no condensation, the refrigeration system maintains the correct climate, and theres redundancy in the refrigeration system, is that enough to get wine collectors to pay a premium for your product? There are two more important components to wine storage that will help turn prospects into clients and clients into referrers. One is a solid emergency preparedness plan, the other is extra security.

Wine collectors live in constant fear that a power failure will ruin their collection. Allay that anxiety with a well-devised plan for emergencies, and tell customers how the system works.

Wine collectors also want to know their collections are safe and private. You can ensure this by adding security on the access doors to the wine-storage area, as well as locks and solid walls and doors on each individual locker.

Following these recommendations will not guarantee that wine collectors will beat your door down and pay a premium for space, but doing so greatly improves your chances by increasing the value of the wine storage your facility provides.  

Jost Lunstroth is president of Nos Caves Inc. He developed and operates Nos Caves Vin, a premium off-site wine-storage facility in Houston, and consults on wine storage through NCV Wine Management, a consultancy focused on wine collections. For more information, visit www.ncvwinemanagement.com.

Sixty total self-storage units at two different facilities were broken into last week in Gaylord, Mich., and investigators belief the crimes were committed by the same felons. Thieves broke into 49 units at APS Mini Warehouse on East Sixth Street and another 11 units at Northend Storage on Fairview Road in Livingston Township.

Dave Baragrey, owner of APS Mini Warehouse, reported the break-ins at his facility on Wednesday. The crimes are being investigated by Gaylord City Police and Gaylord Michigan State Police, who are attempting to contact the unit renters and complete an inventory of items stolen. Some of the items taken from Northend include jewelry and a yellow moped.

Northend Storage is owned by Rance Charboneau, an officer with the Gaylord City Police.

The Amsdell family of companies acquired a self-storage facility in Waterford, Mich., the companys seventh in the Detroit market. Located at 2019 Dixie Highway, the facility has more than 46,000 net rentable square feet. It offers drive-up and indoor units, truck rental, boxes and packing supplies. 

We are excited to expand our service area to Waterford and to get involved with the local community, said company president Todd Amsdell. We look forward to continuing to offer quality self-storage and moving solutions to our customers.

Amsdell also owns existing locations in Florida, Ohio and Pittsburgh. The storage centers are all operated by Compass Self Storage LLC, a member of the Amsdell family of companies.

Amsdell Cos. is headquartered in Cleveland. The company started as a family-owned construction business in 1928 and has since been active in several billion dollars worth of real estate ventures, with a primary focus on self-storage. The company has experience in property acquisition, construction and property management.

Self-storage operator Strategic Storage Trust Inc. recently engaged KeyBanc Capital Markets (KBCM), the investment banking arm of KeyCorp, to serve as its advisor with respect to one or more joint-venture transactions with institutional investors for the purposes of developing, acquiring, owning and managing self-storage properties and related investments.

On July 1, the company entered a $22 million credit facility with KeyBank N.A. It used a portion of the initial $15 million draw to finance the acquisition of a property in Ladera Ranch, Calif., and an additional $3 million draw to finance the acquisition of a property in Hampton, Va. It intends to use the remaining $4 million to finance the closing of a property in Gilroy, Calif. The companys current offering expires on Sept. 16.

Strategic Storage Trust, one of five publicly traded self-storage REITs in the United States, is the first and only one to not be publicly traded on the stock exchange. The companys facilities are branded as SmartStop Self Storage.

Since the companys launch in 2008, its portfolio of wholly owned properties has expanded to include 76 facilities in 17 states and Canada. Strategic Storage Trust is actively purchasing properties. Its portfolio includes approximately 50,000 self-storage units and 6.2 million rentable square feet of storage space.

By Jacqueline Blackwood

Last summer, President Obama and the U.S. Congress worked aggressively on ways to reduce the U.S. deficit, discussing further the agreement to raise the U.S. Department of Treasurys borrowing authority in attempt to avoid a default of its debt.  Ben Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, even suggested the possibility of introducing another round of quantitative easing as an approach to stimulate the U.S economy and, in turn, the banks.

North of the border, the major banks in Canada, known as the Big Six (Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Bank of Nova Scotia, Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, National Bank of Canada), continue to remain relatively stable, as they managed to do throughout the economic downturn. It may be surprising, then, that financing from the Big Six and other financial institutions is still hard to come by for self-storage.

New construction for developers is especially difficult to initiate, with financing up to 65 percent of cost, at best. Prior to the recession, self-storage developers were able to finance lease-up costs in addition to construction costs. Nowadays they struggle for either. Its clear banks are far more conservative in terms of lending. 

Even if an owner is in a good financial position and granted funding from the banks, the length of time it takes to finance a deal has increased drastically. There are stringent requirements and prerequisites that must be met, including a variety of third-party reports, all on top of an already prudent financial institution. Ultimately, the costs to financeaside from interest rate and bank feesare on the rise, while being coupled with lower leverage only means more equity is required. 

Interestingly, its not the financing of the actual construction phase that has the banks hesitant; its the lease-up or bridge stage where they see the most risk. Despite the challenges noted above, theres a rise in the development and construction of newer facilities, albeit nowhere near as high as before the financial crisis began.

Refinancing 

In 2008, there was a sense of panic within the Canadian self-storage industry. Many experts cautioned that numerous facilities would come up financially short to the degree they would have no alternative but to sell. Fortunately, the industry was stable enough to endure the recession and those warnings did not materialize, at least not to the anticipated extent.

Canada has seen self-storage facilities undergo financial distress, but to the best of my knowledge, there has only been one default. This circumstance was a function of high debt, high construction costs and outrageous lease-up expectations (rate and speed). Fortunately for both the bank and the owner, all the financing was recovered, and a good portion of the equity was also recovered. 

Refinancing, in general, hasnt been a huge problem for the industry, as most maturing loans are rolling over with their existing lender. Theres speculation that some of the loans set to rollover in 2012 and beyond will be more difficult to acquire, but at this time, it has remained a non-issue.

Completing a Deal

A common question by those new to the industry, stemming from wanting a quick and easy transaction, is how long does it take to complete a deal? Whether buying, selling, expanding, acquiring or investing in a self-storage facility, its rarely a speedy process.  From the bank side, deals are definitely taking significantly longer than in the pastas long as 90 days or longer depending on the deal. If its a refinancing deal with higher leverage, it can take up to 6 months to complete.

Cap Rates

Capitalization rates have and continue to be relatively good. As the Canadian market has matured, a distinction has grown between the various products. Purchasers and vendors are now recognizing assets as either class-A, -B or -C.  This classification as well as the quality of the market is reflected in cap rates.  During the peak of the market in 2007 almost all the facilities, regardless of market or class, were purchased at a substantially similar cap rate.

Rental Rates

Monthly rental rates in Canada vary regionally from an average of $138 to $212 for a standard 10-by-10 unit, based on numbers from a March study comparing the average cost of a 10-by-10 unit at high-end facilities in major cities. Surprisingly, Edmonton is second only to Vancouver as the most expensive place to store belongings. Naturally, monthly rates are lowest in Saskatoon and Winnipeg, and Montreal rounds out the bottom three with an average cost of $149. The rest of the major Canadian cities including Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and Halifax sit at a common price around approximately $179 a month.  

Despite concerns of rising costs, heavy inflation and new competition, it appears owners have been able to keep rates fairly consistent over the past few years. The rise of concessions, however, has been prominent in those areas with heavy competition. 

As with most real estate assets, self-storage has seen return on investment harder to obtain and refinancing become more expensive. But thats the nature of speculation. Overall, self-storage in Canada remains a fairly safe investment. 

Jacqueline Blackwood is the research and communication coordinator for Foy & Co. Investment Real Estate Services, a full-service company that specializes in equity raising and brokerage services for the Canadian self-storage market. Established in 2002, the company publishes the National Self-Storage Review," an industry newsletter. For more information, visit www.foyco.ca.