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MINI-STORAGE
With six to seven square million feet
of space, 'Canada is understoraged'
Michael MacDonald sounds like he has the
perfect study. The room is filled with thousands of books, he has some 19th
century artwork on the wall and a desk smack dab in the middle.
One problem. It's not exactly connected
to his one-bedroom 500 square foot condominium in downtown Toronto. It's
actually a few kilometres away. His makeshift office is a $175/month climate
controlled self-storage locker.
Mr. MacDonald is one of a growing number
of Canadians moving their non-essential items into storage. On a per capita
basis, Canadians now have 1.5 square feet of storage. It pales in comparison
to the storage kings to the south where Americans average 4.5 square feet of
space.
Three years ago, Mr. MacDonald decided to
rent out storage space because he needed a permanent location for all his
stuff. The criminal defence lawyer said he kept moving in and out of
apartments.
"I have thousands of books, boxes
and boxes of clippings and files apart from my legal practice," he
says. "If I was in a rented apartment, there is always the prospect of
having to move in a year. I was moving from place to place, different
roommates, different landlords. I needed a long-term stable place to keep a
lot of stuff that I didn't want to move every year."
When he finally bought his condo, he
elected to keep the space.
"I have very little room for
storage. There is a closet in the bedroom and I purchased two lockers in the
building," said Mr. MacDonald, adding it's still not enough space.
"I have a lot of 19th century prints and illustrations and I'm willing
to pay to preserve the books."
Mr. MacDonald considers himself transient
and until he gets some permanence in his life, storage will remain part of
it.
"I'm not ready to unpack everything
because I may get married in the next year and buy a house. It wouldn't be
worth it to unpack them and then move again," he says. "If I buy a
house and get married, I'd give up the locker unless I wanted to see how the
marriage went. If I thought I might get divorced in a year or two, I might
keep the locker. Seriously, I mean that."
Mr. MacDonald's commitment to
self-storage is a bit above average, according to StorageMaxx Canada Inc.
The Toronto-based company, which is aiming to build a $250-million storage
empire from coast to coast, says the average person holds storage space for
7.5 months.
"Everyone uses storage. In their
lifetime, everybody stores from people who install blinds, to people who
work for Mary Kay to people who renovate houses," says Gerry Gotfrit,
chief executive of StorageMaxx. "People who lose a parent will use
storage. Storage is trauma and transition."
Mr. Gotfrit and Robert Daniels run
Stockton and Bush Reality Inc, which has the same principals as StorageMaxx.
The two started StorageMaxx in January and began making acquisitions in
September.
There was so little data on the storage
industry in Canada that the two began creating their own stats. By their
calculations, there are 1,500 storage facilities in the country with about
six to seven square million feet of space.
By comparison, there are more than a
billion square feet of space in the United States. One of the largest
companies, Public Storage, has as many storage buildings in the United
States as there are in all of Canada.
Mr. Daniels believes there is room for
growth in Canada but generally expects Canadians to store less than
Americans. That's due to the fact there are less basements in homes in the
southern United States and because the American military has a much larger
presence than its Canadian equivalent and military people tend to move
around more and need storage space.
StorageMaxx is focusing on buying
existing storage facilities -- it's already bought two buildings and has
deals for another eight.
Public Storage is already one of the
largest players in Canada with about 40 facilities and U-Haul has more than
50. "It's mostly a mom and pop business here in Canada," says Mr.
Daniels.
There are four publicly traded Real
Estate Investment Trusts in the United States while there are none in
Canada. That might change with StorageMaxx which says it might consider
going public in three years, if it holds about 50 properties.
"We think Canada is
understoraged," says Mr. Gotfrit. "The demographics here are
changing. People are moving out of large houses to condos where there is
little storage. The country is changing from horizontal growth to vertical
growth." - 2003
January 3 National
Post by
Gary Marr
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