What It Takes to Build a Self Storage Facility

Published by Gerrit Van Maanen

People in Spartan’s circle will often ask us, “what’s it take to build a self-storage facility?” Aside from the financial wizardry required, building a self-storage facility is similar to any other difficult task—but it’s much easier if you have a roadmap.

In this blog, we take you through the high-level steps associated with zoning, designing and constructing your own storage facility.

Zoning

Finding the right place for a facility is a crucial first step toward developing a successful self-storage facility. Not only do you need high demand for storage, competitive rents, flat land, and a lot of frontage, but you must also ensure that the city will actually let you build a facility there. The authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) over your property influences what property types are allowed through their zoning code.

Most AHJs have a convenient map that identifies what is allowed in each parcel making up a town. There are typically only two outcomes from this search: storage is an allowable use (in which case let’s build), or the property is not zoned for a storage use type. If your property does not allow for self-storage, it’s not the end of the line.

Talk to the city planning department about the rezoning process. During your initial discovery, you want to ascertain whether rezones have been done in the past and how receptive the city is to the idea. If you are met with immediate pushback, you could have a long road ahead. If the jurisdiction is pro-development, continue to explore by answering the following questions:

• Are there similar zoning areas around your property?
  Are the adjacent parcels to your property the desired zoning?
• If you answered yes to the above questions, then you may have a compelling case for a rezone. Always be wary of creating a ”zoning island” – one different parcel in a sea of the same. No matter how hard you try, you probably won’t be able to build storage in the middle of a sub-division.

Design

Now that the land is approved for a self-storage facility, it’s time to design! Storage facility design is a critical component of successful development. During the design process, we learn how many units we can create while maximizing the space. There are three main disciplines to designing a self-storage facility and each is important to both simple and complex self-storage.

Civil

A good civil engineer can save you tens of thousands of dollars during construction. Self-storage facilities are uniquely impacted by civil design because the buildings tend to be long, narrow and laden with lots of doors. A civil engineer will help you develop a site plan and determine how the different buildings you want can lay on the land. In addition, civil engineers will help you calculate the stormwater runoff and mitigation requirements of your facility.

Structural

The actual building and its foundation will be largely designed by your structural engineer. Many storage building providers will offer you a turnkey package that includes the steel building components, the labor to erect it and the structural drawings.

Structural engineers will look at the effect that the elements — like wind and snow — will have on your structure and can design it to withstand that region’s conditions. For example, a building must be designed to fit soil conditions. Some dirt can hold lots of weight and some can’t, so a geotechnical report should always be done on a development property and turned over to the structural engineer for review.

Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing

Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) designs are often grouped together as a practice because they can be designed by a single professional. Your jurisdiction may not require a bathroom or any plumbing, but you will certainly need an electrical design and a mechanical design if you plan to construct a climate-controlled facility.

MEP consultants will determine how power gets from the electrical grid to your facility and will even make sure there are enough lights in the hallways to keep your customers satisfied and safe. It’s great to work with these consultants on value engineering and what your electrical preferences are for your property.

Now, where does an architect fit into this mix? If your project is large, complicated or just new to you, you should enlist the help of an architect. Architects help with the overall facility design, and they are the conductor of the engineers listed above.

Housing and Employment

As the facility you’re designing begins to take shape, you can reach out to general contractors and construction professionals who you’d like to construct the facility. The plan set consisting of civil, structural and MEP drawings will become the basis for the general contractor’s scope of work. They will use these design documents to obtain quotes for each individual trade that’s involved in constructing the project. A good contractor will obtain several bids for earthwork, concrete, electrical, framing, paving and everything else required to build your storage facility.

In the bidding stage, it is important to have conversations with general contractors surrounding the schedule, budget and quality of the project. A self-storage facility’s success is largely influenced by these three factors.

Schedule

A schedule becomes the basis of a construction project and is the guide that indicates to the developer how the project is progressing. When reviewing the schedule your contractor put together, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does the schedule seem realistic?
• Does the schedule account for local weather conditions?
• Does the schedule include regular project walks with the stakeholders?

Budget

When a general contractor presents a budget, it can be an unnerving moment—this is the first time you are ascertaining the true cost of your project. During design and underwriting, the anticipated cost has been an educated guess. Now that budgets are on the table, you can have a more accurate measure of your development’s anticipated success.

The budget for a storage facility should be thorough and broken out into the different construction divisions—never accept a one-line budget. Ask the contractors about their contingency funds, inclusions, exclusions and outstanding budgetary risks.

Quality

Quality is elemental to every project as it adds lifetime value to a facility. Quality should be planned into a project from the beginning to the end of construction. Having those conversations before breaking ground will set expectations and help create the facility you envision.

“Time wounds all deals” and the development process can be very time-consuming. Learning to navigate zoning, design and construction is no easy task, but this framework for development can propel your facility to success. By surrounding yourself with the right consultants and following a development system, you can become competent in this practice and mitigate the development risk for yourself and your investors.