Developing a self storage facility can be an exciting new business adventure to take on, even if you have built multiple facilities in the past.
Each new project has its own set of hoops to jump through and conquer, and we are here to guide you through this process.
In today’s storage industry climate, getting things right from the beginning is essential to success. Material costs have risen in the last five years, and competition is more plentiful than ever.
Making the right decisions before (and while) you build will help you reach stability and hit green sooner rather than later.
Alright. Let's take a look at this list!
You’ve heard it before, and at this point, it’s almost a joke.
Except it’s not a joke.
Choosing the right location to build your new self storage facility is serious business. Consider these two facts: 30% of storage customers still find a storage facility by driving by, and most customers will rent from a facility that is nearby and easy to access over harder-to-find facilities.
Makes sense now why location matters even more in storage than many other industries, right?
For many self storage customers, one facility is only slightly different than another. Price and location are dominant factors in the consumer’s decision-making process, and a good location makes your marketing much easier.
So, what makes a good location for a storage facility?
These aren’t necessarily in order of importance, but they’re important considerations to make before building your self storage facility.
The cost to build a self storage facility can significantly range per region, but according to MakoRabco these are the average prices you’re looking at:
If you’re trying to build a modern, state-of-the-art, Class A facility, you’re probably looking at the high end of around $90-$120 per square foot. MakoRabco notes that these figures don’t include land and site improvement costs.
Because of the price tag of materials and labor, you should determine how much storage space your chosen market can take.
Experts in the field call this “absorption.” Or, in other words, how much additional storage space can the market “absorb” before it is saturated and facilities have a hard time renting units?
It would not be great to build out a 90,000 square feet self storage facility in a town that has less than 30,000 people within a 5-mile radius.
Be honest: are you getting a demand study done?
Demand studies are for more than just proving to the bank that your business can make money and pay off its debts.
These studies also usually perform something crucial for the building process: market demand analysis, which is broken down as far as demand for specific storage types.
Proper analysis can help guide you to the decision of building out drive-up storage versus climate-controlled, or how many 5x5s you need versus 10x10s. It can also tell you if customers might make use of certain services, such as package acceptance or moving vehicle rentals.
This changes on a market-by-market basis. Depending on the types of storage customers, unit mix of competitors, and other variables, you can’t always rely on nationwide data for these decisions.
No one wants to build out a whole building of 10x20s only to find out no one in town needs them.
What’s in a name?
If you’re William Shakespeare, apparently not much. But to the storage industry, there’s a whole lot to a name.
Maybe you remember those days when throwing “AAAAAAAAAAAA” at the beginning of your storage facility’s name was a good way to appear first in the phonebook.
Hint: This doesn’t matter anymore; please don’t.
Instead, the best name you can choose incorporates your primary keywords for online search engines.
Here are some tips:
This matters because of Google and other search engines. Just like people used to try and get to the front of the phonebook before with their name, including these keywords today helps you show up more often when customers search on Google.
After all, doesn’t it make sense that someone searching “storage units in knoxville tn” would probably be presented with the facility called “Knoxville Storage Units”?
Pug Pro Tip: Keep this name consistent across your website, signage, and Google Business Profile. Changing the name around in different places can confuse customers and lose valuable trust in your business. It can also lead to problems with your Google profile becoming unverified/suspended.
Last but not least, you need a killer self storage website.
You might be thinking, “Oh, it’s alright, I can wait until we’re finished building to think about a website.”
Here are three reasons that’s a bad idea:
That’s right. One major SEO signal for Google is the page’s age. If you get your website up sooner, you can start building up that age to have a better chance to rank well on Google when you actually open!
You can also start accepting reservations ahead of time, softening the lease-up period a bit.
You should start getting information together for your website at the beginning of the process, but we'd recommend setting it live somewhere around two to three months before you open the doors to renters.
This one wasn’t important enough to make the top 5 list, but in some areas of the country, it might make a big difference.
Renewable energy, such as solar, has become more and more affordable in recent years. The cost of installing solar panels has gone down, and the benefits are only going up. Even Texas’s ERCOT grid is adding primarily renewable energy.
In addition, younger generations have officially taken over the consumer market. Most of your storage customers at this point are likely either Millennials or Gen-Z. These generations tend to enjoy doing business with companies that share their values in some way.
If you’re in an area where electricity is expensive, or if you’re in an area with a much younger demographic that has a taste for renewable energy, you may want to consider making sustainable solar power part of your plan. You may even be able to get a tax credit for using it!
These points may not cover every factor you have to keep in mind when building a storage facility, but they’re some of the most important ones to consider.
Good luck with your building journey!
Take a look at these other great articles!
StoragePug is a modern marketing company for self storage. We create intelligent marketing websites that allow you to rent units & take payments through your facility’s website.g
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