Spartan Investment Group, a Colorado-based real estate investment firm focusing on the self-storage sector, recently hired Melissa Robbins as vice president of marketing and Derrick Harris as vice president of operations for its national banner, FreeUp Storage....
Hearthfire Holdings has big plans for the self-storage property it recently purchased at 2817 N. Peoria Ave. in Tulsa, OK. The company, which owns 17 properties (plus two more under contract) in seven states, plans to nearly quadruple the Tulsa site’s size from the...
It’s been an impressive run for self-storage-centric 10 Federal. The Raleigh, NC-based company has raised a total of $16 million in Q4, its fourth such offering. Overall the company, which has properties in 10 states, has garnered more than $96 million since its first...
StorSafe Self-Storage’s recent entry into third-party management is only part of the Skokie, Illinois-based firm’s aggressive plans for long-term expansion across the nation. Last month, StorSafe, owner of 29 facilities across the Midwest and Southeast, announced the...
In a strategic move, Go Store It has appointed Evan Stephens as Chief Investment Officer (CIO). Announced on January 18, 2024, Stephens’ promotion is set to drive the company’s investment approach, focusing on disciplined deal evaluation and maximizing returns. A...
Infused with an $11 million funding round last February, NYC-based self-storage startup Stuf has tripled the size of its real estate footprint over the last year. In a conversation with the SpareFoot Storage Beat, co-founder and CEO Katharine Lau said the company...
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...
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...
City Line Capital has been on a growth streak this year, acquiring 18 self-storage facilities through the first half of the year. That brings the Bala Cynwyd, PA-based firm's portfolio at mid-year to a total of 253 properties. The portfolio spans 15 million square...
Doug Steverson has spent the past five years handling self-storage acquisitions for Boardwalk Development Group, the Suwanee, GA.-based private equity company founded and headed by industry veteran Rajen Sheth. But the market is the market – and the market, at least...
For some people, self-storage is a place to stash their stuff. For others, it’s a retirement plan. Looking for a low-maintenance and highly rewarding real estate investment, many with money to invest are turning to self-storage as a reliable cash-generating business...
A self-storage brokerage team has parted ways with a national real estate firm to launch a new company. After three years as part of Berkshire Hathaway Commercial, Cameron Vale said the time felt right for the group to go out on their own. Vale is the founder and...
After amassing $637 million in commercial real estate closings over the last four years, broker Meir Perlmuter has been promoted to First Vice President Investments at Marcus & Millichap’s office in Columbus, OH. Last year, Perlmuter was named one of the top 10...
City Line Capital has hired a new chief investment officer to continue the firm's growth trajectory across the country. Ben Carr comes to the job with more than 20 years of experience in the industry, most recently as president and CIO of Go Store It. Carr also served...
Capital Growth Buchalter (CGB), a national development and construction firm, recently launched a new self-storage company focused on buying and building facilities throughout the United States. CGB tapped Mike Vahle, a former real estate development executive at...
Technology revolutions have changed the course of human history in profound and profoundly unpredictable ways since the dawn of human civilization. When someone steps up in the early stages of a technological revolution and says, in contradiction of accepted dogma and...
Ramser Development Company has hired Adam Deermount to serve as its Chief Investment Officer. In the new role, Deermount will be responsible for directing the strategic expansion of Ramser Development’s established portfolio of storage assets across the U.S. Ramser...
Frank DeSalvo, 33, and David Perlleshi, 32, are self-storage investment sales brokers who have worked together for five years. They recently left Sands Investment Group to join Franklin Street to build a national practice serving self-storage owners and investors....
Jordan Wright started Harvest Property Management in Wichita, KS in October 2020 – right in the heart of the pandemic. “It was kind of a crazy time to start a business, but we took that leap of faith and have been growing ever since,” said Wright, director of...
Last month StorageMart announced it was getting into the third-party management business. The new truSTORAGE platform will offer property management services to independent storage operators, allowing them to benefit from use of the StorageMart name, as well as the...
Last month, StoragePRO Management snagged a contract to manage Gecko RV & Boat Storage in Roseburg, OR. The 120,276-square-foot storage facility is the company’s 92nd facility operating on its third-party management platform and its first location in Oregon. The...
What comes down, must go up. Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve raised the benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point, the largest increase since the year 2000, as it seeks to tamp down rising inflation. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that...
See what can happen when you’re nice to your neighbors? Ryan Gibson and Scott Lewis were neighbors in Washington, D.C. and got along so well, they decided to start Spartan Investment Group in 2013. Today they have 100 employees, have raised $200 million in years past...
The June 2021 acquisition of MakoRabco combined Carlsbad, California-based Mako Steel, with its strong West Coast presence, and Rabco Enterprises, based in Winter Garden, Florida and well-known along the East Coast. Now with the coasts covered, the plan is to attract...
Scott Schoettlin’s job title may have changed, but his mission remains the same: grow SkyView Advisors’ self-storage brokerage business. Schoettlin, the former senior vice president of the Tampa-based commercial real estate brokerage firm, became managing director of...
Sharpen your funding pitch and you might just end up like DXD Capital, which hoped to raise $50 million in its first round of funding but went beyond that, hitting $53 million before closing the round. “What I learned this time is that the more you have a focus and a...
Herby Bowman wants to make a deal – and he’s hoping to make a lot of them in coming years. Bowman, formerly the director of business development for Public Storage, recently joined Store Space Self Storage as the firm’s new senior director of business development. His...
The William Warren Group recently promoted Tim Hobin, 51, to chief investment officer. His duties include leading the real estate team to deliver on investment strategy, to mentor leadership and to foster investment return and growth objectives. WWG is a nationally...
While many in the self-storage industry would be thrilled to have a repeat of 2021, a new year has dawned. The year 2022 holds plenty of promise, even if it doesn’t quite reach the record-breaking heights of the last 12 months. But who knows? 2022 could be a record...
This year, the self-storage industry saw three portfolios trade for well over $1.5 billion each. What did all three deals have in common? Kieran O’Shea. O’Shea, managing director of real estate investment bank Eastdil Secured, represented the sellers of the EZ Storage...
In August, self-storage developer and operator NitNeil Partners sold a 22-property portfolio to Life Storage for $228 million in a cash and stock deal. “The business plan was to assemble an institutional grade portfolio and connect the dots between a highly...
Clearwater, FL-based PODS Enterprises recently expanded its senior leadership team with four new hires: Susan Jacobs was appointed Chief Marketing Officer. Jacobs will lead the moving and storage company's marketing efforts. Most recently, Jacobs was Senior Vice...
Pogoda Companies is looking to break out of its Michigan and Ohio base – and it’s hired Beau Agnello to help, operationally and strategically, achieve its expansion goals. The Farmington Hills, MI-based Pogoda recently announced that Agnello will serve as its new...
After a ten-year pause in running his self-storage consulting firm in order to work in the employ of a number of storage operators, RK Kliebenstein has returned to his roots, resurrecting his Coast-To-Coast Storage Reality Advisors and signing up new clients amid a...
When you are a legendary skateboarder with a career spanning collection of skate decks, awards, VHS tapes, and shoes, what do you do? Rent a self-storage unit and become a pitchman, of course. Santa Monica, CA-based StorQuest Self Storage recently debuted a new...
Boise, ID-based Forge Building Co recently announced it landed 10 new self-storage building projects with a combined total of more than 600,000 square feet in six Idaho cities: Boise, Meridian, Eagle, Hailey, Twin Falls and Rupert. “We’re actually hiring a lot right...
Talonvest Capital wants to further strengthen its East Coast business – and thinks it’s found just the man to do it. In April, John Chase, a long-time executive at Boston’s Tremont Reality Capital, joined the Irvine, CA-based Talonvest as senior director of business...
Everyone knows the pandemic has wreaked havoc with the U.S. and world economies, with massive layoffs and closed businesses. But the nation’s self-storage industry has thrived amidst the chaos, according to industry experts, with more growth to come. “Self-storage...
Crescit Capital Strategies has closed on a $16.1 million self-storage financing deal in Philadelphia, its first transaction in what it hopes and expects will be a strong 2021 for self-storage lending in general. The financing was for Snapbox Self Storage’s acquisition...
Portable storage provider PODS has announced the appointment of Kathryn Marinello as president and CEO of the Clearwater, FL-based company. Marinello succeeds John B. Koch who held the role for eight years. Marinello comes to PODS with over 20 years of executive...
Tax season is just around the corner and self-storage owners need to start working on properly filing for their business. Self-storage facilities have a lot of moving parts and can have different investors. This can make properly filing your taxes for your...
As part of the sale of his multimillion truck part business RealTruck.com in 2015, entrepreneur and author Scott Bintz agreed to a non-compete clause. That meant he couldn’t launch any kind of e-commerce business for five years. So, he built a self-storage facility....
The coronavirus pandemic has brought the economy to a halt and made it difficult for first-time business owners to find the financing they need to get started. The self-storage industry is not immune to the world’s economic woes, but that doesn’t mean that first-time...
Self-storage broker Cameron Vale is helping a multibillion-dollar conglomerate gain ground in the storage industry. Vale recently joined the newly formed Berkshire Hathaway Storage Group as senior vice president. The Greenville, SC-based group is affiliated with...
InSite Property Group is a multifaceted real estate investment group with 25 development deals in place across the country—22 of them are self-storage. It operates its storage facilities under the name SecureSpace. The firm has completed and opened three so far, the...
Since starting Red Dot Storage in 2013, I have been a vocal proponent of automated management solutions in the self-storage industry. For Red Dot, automation created a highly scalable management platform that facilitated rapid growth from a single property to over 180...
The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic has hit the nation’s self-storage industry – dealmakers, owners, operators, developers and others all trying ways to adjust. Risk-averse behavior has grown among developers and bankers; non-recourse funding has almost...
With the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down parts of the U.S. economy, it is absolutely critical to understand the differential in costs between customer acquisition and customer retention in your business. In economics, we use the 5-to-1 ratio as a typical average and I...
Steven Weinstock is the national director of the Marcus & Millichap Self Storage Division. Weinstock, based out of Chicago, also serves as a first vice president and regional manager of Marcus & Millichap’s Chicago Oak Brook office and specializes in...
Cushman & Wakefield’s Self-Storage Advisory Group is coming off a busy year, brokering $412 million in property sales nationally. The SpareFoot Storage Beat recently spoke with Mike Mele, vice chairman and group lead to hear about what drove that growth, as well...
While researching self-storage facilities as an investment, you may have come across the idea that they tend to show resistance to recessions and economic slowdowns when compared with other commercial real estate investments. Let's take a look at what makes...
In April, self-storage industry veteran Ben Carr joined self-storage owner and developer MCSS Development & Investment LLC as president. Six months later, in October, Carr has grabbed a new opportunity as president and chief investment officer at self-storage...
Here is a modern twist of a myth told long ago. Daedalus had a son named Icarus. They were both imprisoned in a tower by King Minos. Daedalus, a skilled craftsman by trade, crafted two sets of wings. One for himself and one for his son, Icarus. The wings were fastened...
A real estate investment firm in Southern California has brought aboard a self-storage industry veteran to lead the formation of a storage portfolio comprising at least 100 facilities. James Hanrahan, former managing partner of Orange, CA-based RHW Capital Management...
As a marketer, business development executive, public speaker and author, Tron Jordheim has witnessed a lot during his nearly 20 years in the self-storage industry. Jordheim’s latest venture in self-storage: He and Store Here Self Storage recently formed Self Storage...
What does the rest of the year hold for the self-storage sector? To answer the question we checked in with JLL Managing Director Brian Somoza. He co-leads the national self-storage real estate brokerage team at JLL with Steve Mellon, with Mellon based in Houston and...
From my home office in Lincoln, Nebraska, and with apologies to David Letterman, I bring you the top ten things your lender wants to make sure you know for the most positive transaction experience possible. 10. Verify your credit ahead of time. “Get your credit report...
Earlier this year my storage facility in Anchorage Alaska took the unfortunate brunt of a mudslide that caused extensive damage to my buildings and required a large number of repairs. The cause of the mud slide was a water main break in the condominium complex...
From my home office in Lincoln, Nebraska, and with apologies to David Letterman, I bring you the top ten things your broker wants to make sure you know for the most positive transaction experience possible. 10. Think about the big picture ahead of time. “Before...
MCSS Development & Investment LLC has named Ben Carr its new President. Carr will work closely with MCSS founders Jay Massirman, Steve Garchik and Steve McBride on the successful execution of the joint venture’s strategic plan. Carr brings substantial experience...
From my home office in Lincoln, Nebraska, and with apologies to David Letterman, I bring you the top ten reasons you should build your next self-storage facility now. 10. It’s a good time to secure financing. “There is plenty of money available. At the recent mortgage...
As this development cycle enters the later stages there are many instances of submarket trade areas where multiple new self-storage projects have been delivered within short-order of each other. Numerous developer clients that work nationally have raised the question...
The state of Arizona is experiencing a period of mass migration. In fact, Maricopa County, where the city of Phoenix is located, had more people move to it than any other county in the country last year. This influx of people moving from the west coast and an increase...
More change is in the air for the self-storage industry. In mid-January, Newmark Knight Frank added Chris Sonne and Jonathan Lang to its Valuation & Advisory Self-storage practice. Both moved to NKF’s Irvine, California, office from CBRE’s Newport Beach office....
Now under the umbrella of Cushman & Wakefield, veteran self-storage broker Mike Mele envisions his team executing $1 billion in annual deal volume by 2024. Ten years after its formation, most members of the Mele Group-directed self-storage brokerage team at Marcus...
Union Realtime, a provider of data and analytics solutions for the self-storage industry, has hired Theresa Gallas to serve as its chief business development officer. Previously Gallas was president of List Self Storage, a property listing website for the industry...
Austin, TX-based FineView Marketing has tapped Chuck Vion to serve as its chief marketing officer. Vion was most recently marketing director for SiteLink, the self-storage management software company. Vion comes with a total of 22 years of marketing and self-storage...
Self-storage industry figure Rick Yonis passed away last month at the age of 61. A fixture at state and national trade shows, Yonis was president of Sentry Self Storage Management, a Coral Springs, FL-based operator with 24 owned and managed facilities in Texas,...
After a long and distinguished career working mostly at large self-storage companies, including a few self-storage REITs, Cynthia Ashby decided it was time for a change. A year ago, she struck out on her own and founded Georgia-based Dynamic Self Storage Solutions, a...
Move-in rate is a tremendously important metric for the self-storage industry, measuring the number of leads at a given facility that turn into rent-paying tenants. On SpareFoot, the average move-in rate is at least 46 percent for any given month of the year. But,...
Store Space Self Storage has sprinted out of the gate after opening shop last spring. The company is spearheaded by Chris Harris and Rob Consalvo, former executives at iStorage. The Orlando, Florida-based company already is operating seven locations in its home state,...
Tenant Length of Stay (LOS) is a commonly used success metric for the self-storage industry, ultimately measuring the total time a tenant spends renting a unit at a facility, from move-in to move-out. SpareFoot research has shown that a good average LOS is 7-10...
Fast-growing West Coast Self-Storage is facing a challenge familiar to many other expansion-minded storage operators: as it searches for sites the company faces more competition than ever to find land for new facilities. “It is getting much harder,” said John...
Marcus Mollmann has “moved on” from his role of CEO at full-service storage company Closetbox and has plans to launch a new venture in the near future. Mollmann told the SpareFoot Storage Beat that the reason for his departure was due to “a difference in strategic...
Live Oak Bank’s self-storage lending team has been on a hot streak since its 2015 formation. The Wilmington, NC-based company finished its 165th self-storage loan in December 2017, reaching a combined $350 million in loans made to company owner/operators...
Reflection is always good in business. Self-storage owners and operators can all learn by looking back at this past year and measure the potential ahead or the obvious missed opportunities. Self-storage continues to amaze and delight owners and investors, but we can...
For many prospective storage tenants moving into a storage facility can be emotional and even uncomfortable. We as operators all know there are several circumstances that lead up to this move or transition, some negative and others positive. With all emotional ties...
Liberty Investment Properties recently announced that it has promoted Mark Poole from Regional Manager to Director of Operations for Self Storage Operations. Liberty specializes in the development and operation of high-performing, income producing, commercial real...
The principal of Ft. Lauderdale-based Wheat Capital Management, Daniel Joseph Touizer, was arrested this week for allegedly bilking 150 investors out of $19 million. The company is developing a trio of self-storage facilities in Margate, Pembroke Pines and Miami, that...
The self storage industry has operated in the same manner for a long time and not much new innovation has triggered the consumer to stop and take notice. Until recently. We know that the self-storage industry is a fragmented business with some 50,000 facilities in the...
People starting a new job often bring a few personal items, perhaps a cell phone, a potted plant and a file of business contacts. When Travis Morrow assumes his new role as president of the Self Storage Division at San Diego-based Strat Property Management Inc. on...
Editor's note: The following op/ed piece is the opinion of the author. Interested in submitting your industry observations? Contact [email protected] Traditionally an overlooked industry, self-storage has seen a surge in new customers and a growing interest by...
Regional operators in the self-storage industry, often ask: “How can I compete against the big guys?” “Can I have market share with Public Storage? Extra Space or CubeSmart?” “With price, competition, size selection and all their technology… how can I compare? Where...
As editor of the SpareFoot Storage Beat, I'd like to take a quick moment to share some exciting news from SpareFoot. Every year, Inside Self Storage hosts a Best of Business contest for the best vendors in the storage industry. We’re humbled and excited to say that...
The self-storage industry is in the midst of a development boom, and the deserts and mountains of Utah are no exception. There are about a dozen new projects underway in the city, which has a metro population around 1.1 million, the 48th largest metro area in the...
A dozen of the 50 largest self-storage operators in the U.S. are based in Southern California, with six of the 12 maintaining headquarters in Orange County. Other than the abundant sunshine and the many miles of beaches, why is Southern California essentially the...
Troy Downing just emerged from a hunting trip, deep within the Alaskan wilderness. It was September 16, 2001. Downing quickly learned that the country had been attacked while he was off the grid, and his life would never be the same. "September 11 came around and it...
Last month, W. P. Carey Inc. announced it hired industry veteran Brian Boulter as its new director of Self-Storage. W. P. Carey ranked as the 8th largest owner/operator of self-storage assets in the United States, according to Inside Self-Storage. Boulter will be...
Troy Downing, CEO of California-based AC Self Storage Solutions, has announced his plans to run for a U.S. Senate seat in 2018. Downing, a Republican, seeks to replace Democrat Jon Tester. A second Republican is also running, state Senator Al Olszewski. Downing's...
The following article is solely the opinion of the author. If you are interested in submitting an op/ed article for the Storage Beat, please contact [email protected]. There is no doubt that “on demand” or “full service” storage is making waves within the storage...
Memphis-based self-storage construction lender Jernigan Capital announced that Kelly Luttrell has been promoted to the role of Chief Financial Officer effective May 3. Luttrell will replace William Drummond, who will serve as a consultant following his retirement....
During his decade-long career as a Seattle Seahawks cornerback, Marcus Trufant was generously compensated, lived the “NFL dream” and even got to play in the Super Bowl. But his NFL playing career also netted him numerous concussions, along with neck and back injuries,...
Charity Storage was founded in 2012 by veteran self storage operators, Lance Watkins (StoreLocal, Storage Outlet) and Barry Hoeven (US Storage Centers, Westport Properties). The goal is to turn abandoned and donated goods into funds for charity through Charity Storage...
Next Door Storage president Phil Murphy purchased a property at 1910 E Algonquin Road in Algonquin, IL in 2012 with the intention of rebuilding and revitalizing the site. It took Murphy four years to get through the zoning process but about $3 million later, a new...
A new venture, composed of a seasoned self-storage brokerage team and a New York investment bank, has formed with the intent of investing $200 million to acquire operating storage facilities around the country. "We are under contract on a couple of properties now, and...
Marcus & Millichap has recently promoted two brokers to senior director positions at its National Self Storage Group. Stacey Gorman and Sean Delaney have more than a decade each at the firm prior to their new appointments. Gorman, a vice president of investments at...
On its sun-baked surface, self-storage may appear an unlikely setting for spiritual enlightenment. But for Larendee Roos, the Wyoming-born daughter of an evangelical minister, her journey into the world of 10x10s has been packed with life-changing existential insights...
R. Christian Sonne has been tapped to lead CBRE Group’s newly created self-storage valuation division. Sonne joins CBRE after leading self-storage valuation services at Cushman & Wakefield for more than nine years. During that time Sonne became known for his...
After 11 years as chief marketing officer of StorageMart, and even longer as the director of its subsidiary PhoneSmart, Tron Jordheim has resigned. “It was a great run, we did so many great things,” Jordheim told the SpareFoot Storage Beat. Jordheim said he was...
Zippy Shell has announced a new board member to help the growing firm sustain its rapid trajectory--a path that recently landed the company onto the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest growing companies. Ransom James, partner and founding member of Atlanta, GA-based...
