There is a new boss at one of the country’s top self-storage construction companies.
Jim Reinhart is the new CEO at MakoRabco, a portfolio company of private equity firm New State Capital Partners. John Cross, who has served as CEO since 2021, is retiring and will continue to serve as an advisor during the transition.
Industry leader
MakoRabko is a leading storage builder with a nationwide presence, having completed 4,000 facilities including single story, multi-story, climate controlled, enclosed boat & RV, canopy, and multi-level conversion projects across the country. The construction firm formed in 2021 through the merger of California-based Mako Steel and Florida-based Rabco Enterprises, with New State as majority partner.
Reinhart joins the company with an extensive experience in commercial construction, but not self-storage specifically. Reinhart has held a slew of executive leadership roles, notably as the COO of QTS Realty Trust, a premier REIT in the data center sector. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Mr. Reinhart holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Masters in microelectronics from University of Maryland.
From nuclear subs to laser printers
Reinhart says he got his start in construction refueling nuclear submarines as a member of the U.S. Navy Submarine Force.
“The job they put me in was refueling nuclear reactors, which involves pulling out all the parts and putting them all back together,” Reinhart said, “You learn how to do some heavy construction, and how to do it smartly and safely.”
That experience laid the foundation for Reinhart’s 20-plus year career in commercial construction. One of his first ventures was with Hewlett-Packard building large warehouses and distribution facilities for printers.
“At the time printers were mostly something business used, but they had developed the first personal laser printers, so we started building a bunch of facilities for them,” Reinhart said.
One of those projects was located in Richmond, Virginia, where Reinhart remains based. The Storage Beat caught up to find out about what Reinhart has in store for MakoRabco and what challenges he is contending with as he steps into the job.
Our conversation continues below
How did you come into this role?
I had a stint with a company called QTS Realty Trust. They build data centers, not storing small business valuables, but storing their personal data. We built 100,000-square-foot-plus facilities that store a bunch of servers. I think New State saw that as pretty relevant experience, as well as my involvement in other high-growth businesses and B2B businesses.
What are some of your goals as the new CEO?
As the industry leader, we will see what we can do to take our platform to the next level. I realized in construction how to help companies obtain high-growth by focusing on the customer experience. I am interested in helping the team that’s here and our partners form the best network and ecosystem possible.
What’s your view of the current state of the self-storage industry?
It has good tailwinds. Folks are looking for better solutions than storing things on their personal property or small businesses paying extensive prices to store where they are, and find self-storage is a much more attractive option. There is good growth not just in consumers needing storage for their valuable assets, but for businesses that need it more and more as e-commerce grows.
What does your project pipeline look like now?
I feel that we have moved on from being two companies, one was East Coast and one West Coast, to having a national platform were we can service demand across the country. We can serve people that need individual buildings as well as national and regional players looking for partnerships as they do multiple facilities.
We are still seeing growth across all spaces, not only driven by small business and population growth, but other macro changes like more people working from home and needing additional space, people talking more leisure time and investing in RVs and boats.
Looking at government figures, there has been slight uptick in self-storage construction spending over the last year. What do you think is driving that?
The space has attracted a lot of capital recently. Folks have seen that the industry has weathered over the decades these financial ups and downs better than most industries. Even with rising interest rates they are still able to get good cap rates and value for these assets. Even with inflation they can still get rents that give them a good return and customers are considered to be stickier than ever. That is what we are seeing as the rest of commercial real estate is coming into challenges, especially with office space.
