Archive for September, 2007
With commercial real estate prices expected to fall as much as 15 percent over the next year – the largest dip since the 2001 recession – it’s time to hold on to property and keep it rented.Portable storage is helping the cause. Portable storage containers add external square footage to your commercial real estate property. That means you don’t need to build additional facilities before you absolutely need them. Portable storage containers come in various sizes and colors. These units can be strategically positioned in the back of a commercial facility. That puts the containers out the customers’ site but still conveniently in reach of tenants who need extra storage space for overstock, tools or other items.
“We frequently hear stories about commercial landlords who have extended their facility’s use by adding portable storage containers to the mix,” said John Finnessy, CMP, Executive Director the National Portable Storage Association, or NPSA, a nonprofit membership association dedicated to the advancement of the portable storage industry. “You can even charge an incremental fee to the tenant in many cases. It’s a win-win.”
Jesse Jenkins, owner of Jedlicka’s Saddlery, Inc. in Santa Barbara, can testify to that fact. Jenkins owns a commercial building from which he sells his saddles, and he rents part of the building to a carpet flooring business. But Jenkins was threatened with losing his tenant when the carpet business grew out of the space. “My tenant didn’t have enough storage…we provided that with a portable storage container,” Jenkins explains. “Now he’s renting additional space from us.”
Click here to read the rest of this story. This is an example of a press release we distributed for one of our clients, the National Portable Storage Association.
September 21st, 2007
So what do you do with a gifted piece of land? Do research; then do more research, and finally, whittle down all your possibilities to one final conclusion. That’s what three siblings did when their parents gave them nearly two acres of land along Rodeo Road, writes Cindy Bellinger of The New Mexican.
Bellinger goes on to tell the stories of three siblings who launched a self-storage facility in her neck of the woods. I only wish I had the free time to call them up and ask: Did you send out a press release? Was it happenstance? Does the newspaper have a beat reporter for self-storage?
This is a great story and my heart is to see every single self-storage facility get a write up like this one in their local paper. Press releases make that easier. We tell the story you want told rather than hoping a reporter will take notice and tell the right story. Congratulations to the Ortiz family and your new venture.
Click here to read the story in The New Mexican.
September 19th, 2007
The green movement is sweeping the nation and portable storage is poised to play a key role in helping environmentally-friendly companies, like Santa Barbara Electric Bike Company, grow their businesses.
Santa Barbara Electric Bicycle Company’s bikes are hitting the streets as a new mode of fun and reliable transportation. Stylish and quiet, electric bikes are also proving to be the efficient and sustainable answer to skyrocketing gas prices and increasing traffic congestion. The bikes work by augmenting rider power with a rechargeable, lightweight battery.
“Our goal is to reduce emissions and make Santa Barbara the greenest city in the nation. We want to get everybody riding a bike to work and portable storage containers are helping us make that goal a reality,” said Scott Shaw, owner of Santa Barbara Electric Bike Company. “For a small business with high growth potential, portable storage containers are definitely a necessity. It’s a cost-effective way for us to grow our business and to expand according to the demands. We need a secure location to store our products. Portable storage helps.”
Click here to read the rest of this story.
September 18th, 2007
The green movement is sweeping the nation and portable storage is poised to play a key role in helping environmentally-friendly companies, like Santa Barbara Electric Bike Company, grow their businesses.Santa Barbara Electric Bicycle Company’s bikes are hitting the streets as a new mode of fun and reliable transportation. Stylish and quiet, electric bikes are also proving to be the efficient and sustainable answer to skyrocketing gas prices and increasing traffic congestion. The bikes work by augmenting rider power with a rechargeable, lightweight battery.
“Our goal is to reduce emissions and make Santa Barbara the greenest city in the nation. We want to get everybody riding a bike to work and portable storage containers are helping us make that goal a reality,” said Scott Shaw, owner of Santa Barbara Electric Bike Company. “For a small business with high growth potential, portable storage containers are definitely a necessity. It’s a cost-effective way for us to grow our business and to expand according to the demands. We need a secure location to store our products. Portable storage helps.”
Click here to read the rest of this story.
September 14th, 2007
Sustainable self storage units are coming. StorageMart Self Storage is looking to collect the best green building designs and ideas for its new Build it Green Design Challenge.
It is reported that construction and maintenance of buildings accounts for 40 percent of energy use and 30 percent of raw materials use, and that buildings are a major contributor to global warming. Self storage is already a low-impact construction class, but StorageMart wants it to be the greenest.
StorageMart is looking for designers and builders who want to make the planet more eco-friendly and make sustainable living more prevalent. StorageMart is asking people to submit their ideas on how to make the self storage industry a leader in sustainable, green design and green building to the StorageMart Build it Green Design Challenge.
Entries will be accepted in the following categories:
- Sustainable Construction Materials: Renewable materials, clean supplies and super-low emissions processes and green material innovations.
- Energy Positive: Ideas and proposals to create more energy than we use by such means as solar, wind, geothermal, rain driven, hydroelectric or techniques yet to be developed.
- Carbon Negative: Utilizing green roofs, walls and parking areas, carbon absorbing ponds and designs to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
- Wildlife/Natural Habitat-Friendly: Ideas to build self storage units and properties that help the industry promote and sustain the natural habitat of the surrounding environment.
- New Conveniences and Amenities: Improving the customer experience and adding design elements that help both the customer and environment.
- Smart Functions: Create and add new technologies and/or tools to make using and managing self storage properties easier and more efficient.
- Bottom Line Results: Cost analyses and return on investment guidelines to help the industry create profit by shifting to green building and design.
- Re-Used and Recycled Materials: Use old materials to do new things for self storage unit owners and customers.
- Gray Water Solutions: Re-use waste water to everyone’s benefit.
Ideas and designs should be posted online using the submitter’s Web site or a Web site of choice.
E-mails indicating intention to submit a design should be sent to tron @ phone-smart.net. A well written 200-400 word proposal summary of the design idea should be in the body of the e-mail. This should include the Web address where the proposal and design can be viewed in its entirety. If the submission is accepted, notification will be sent to the submitting party and the entry will be submitted to the panel of judges.
Tron, this is brilliant on all fronts. Congratulations for a winning self-storage publicity strategy that’s great for the industry and the world. Keep up the good work.
September 12th, 2007
Is your self-storage facility complying with lien laws?
Vin A. Fichter, a nationally recognized expert in self-storage law, told the North Country Gazette that one of the primary legal issues facing the self-storage industry is the operator’s failure to follow the state’s lien sale procedure law
Fichter has said that he has seen example after example in which, for the sake of expediency and to save some small expenses, a self-storage company will discard the personal property of a tenant without following the easy “safe harbor” procedures in the state’s law.
“This is sheer folly and eventually will land the mini-storage facility in a lawsuit, one which might even affect the financial ability of the facility to survive. Plaintiff attorneys have a way of smelling money and will take such cases on contingency if there is ‘gold in them thar hills’. Then the mini-storage tenant has no risk because he or she pays nothing if the attorney does not recover anything. Don’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish,” Fichter says. “Follow the Self Storage Act. It’s easy.”
I’ll take it a step further. If you don’t follow the laws, you may find yourself in a whole heap of bad publicity in your community in addition to a lawsuit. Avoid the need for a crisis communications campaign by taking action early. If you do find yourself in a PR nightmare, though, be sure to confront it head on with a communications plan that serves as clean up patrol. Staying silent only makes matters worse.
Click here to read the rest of this story on the North Country Gazette.
September 7th, 2007
A Florida construction crew with a backhoe accidentally cut into an underground tank near a hospital on Aug. 27. Just three days later, a construction crew at the Minnesota Zoo punctured a gas line while they were working on a new zoo exhibit. Although both mistakes were handled efficiently and nobody was hurt, Dean Brown, president of American Steel Buildings, points out how choosing the right construction crew can make a difference.
“Everybody makes mistakes,” Brown said. “But the difference between an experienced crew and an inexperienced construction crew could be the difference in what mistakes are made and how they’re handled. In erecting a self storage building, you may not have to worry about hitting a gas line, but there are other issues. Choosing the right crew can help eliminate the possibility of costly and harmful mistakes.”
You know what I like about this story? Brown is savvy enough to understand his need for publicity and crafted a brilliant campaign. I applaud him and his colleagues. Click here to read the rest of this release for yourself.
September 6th, 2007
New information released this week by the Alexandria, Virginia-based Self Storage Association (SSA) indicates that the number of primary self storage facilities in the United States has nearly doubled since the year 2000. At the end of 2006, 51,500 primary self storage facilities dotted the country, with 23,075 of those facilities added between 2000 and 2006. This represents 81 percent growth in the number of facilities during this period.
“The U.S. self storage industry continues to expand at a pace in step with growing residential and commercial demand,“ says Michael T. Scanlon, Jr., President and CEO of the Self Storage Association. “However, dollars that heretofore had been allocated toward ground-up development of new facilities are now being channeled toward expansion and renovation of existing facilities, conversions to self storage from other uses, as well as an increase in the number of acquisitions being undertaken, Nearly one-in-ten American households now rents a self storage unit and nationally commercial business now accounts for about 30 percent of total self storage rental space.”
The industry’s most recent research confirms whatmembers have been saying – that the rising costs for land, tighter capital markets and the added costs associated with a longer entitlements process, have all had a negative effect on ground-up development.
The question is what will the industry do about it? A strong and strategic community relations program doesn’t hurt — in fact it can pay major dividends. Self-storage operators looking to do new projects should communicate the benefits of their plans to community stakeholders. If you can get the community on your side, it will be easier to get the politicians to follow suit.
September 4th, 2007
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