Ask the Expert

New developers often zero in on building costs first. But there is a lot of homework that goes into pricing out a project. You’ll need a survey from your civil engineer before you can create a site plan. Keep in mind that the steel building itself is a small portion of your overall costs. Land, site prep, foundations, paving, are also major costs. Getting a meaningful quote from any trade will require a detailed plan, which starts with a local civil engineer.

The custom nature and complexity of our building designs makes it impractical to attempt to maintain a price list, and even if we did, what most new developers should be looking at is the overall development cost, not just a steel building price.

We have developed our “Basic Investment Calculator” to help investors create a financial projection for a project. You can try it out here: Basic Investment Calculator. If you hover over a help field next to any field, it will offer guidance on typical figures (including typical overall development costs) 

This is one of the first questions asked by new developers, and often one of the most misguided.

In developing your self storage facility, you’ll most likely need get an offer accepted on land, confirm zoning status, possibly apply for a conditional use permit, secure financing, close on the land, apply for state and local commercial building permits, and stormwater permits.

Once all of the above is complete, your grading and foundation contractors will need time to prepare your site and foundations.

The above process takes many developers a few years to complete.

During this process, you’ll work with your Trachte Regional manager to develop ballpark estimates, a building layout and quote, and eventually a permit set that you’ll need in order to gain approval from your city and possibly your state. Trachte’s lead times on these tasks will vary, based on your project complexity and current workload from other clients.

Once you’ve reached the point at which you have a building permit and ordered buildings from us, our goal is a 10 week turnaround, however during busy times this lead time may be longer. We suggest to order buildings and contract with your erectors well in advance on your desired ship date. 

Every area of the country is different with rental rates, and it’s the sites within about 3 miles that you are concerned about. Call a couple of sites that are close to you. I would ask what their 10′ X 10′ size cost is and then divide by 100 times 12 months will be your average. For a more conservative number, ask for a 10×15 rate and divide by 150 times 12 months. 

The smaller the unit the higher the return but that’s assuming that you have tenants in them. Check out your potential competition to see if certain sizes are over or under built in your area.

Your building footprint will also impact unit size. The most popular building widths are 30′ to 40′ wide, which to some extent can drive unit mix. You’ll have the option of adding small endwall closets, but throughout the majority of the building the two units that are back to back must equal the building width.

Narrower buildings cost a little more per square foot, and increase your foundation and paving costs while reducing the amount of rentable sq ft on your property.

For typical drive-up units, about 30 to 35% of the land ends up as rentable sq ft. This is influenced by easements, setbacks, and various stormwater requirements.

Drive up units are most commonly 30 to 40′ wide. Land coverage can reach 40 to 45% by building wider buildings with interior corridors. If the land has minimal setbacks and exceptionally wide buildings are used, it may be possible to reach 50% coverage.

To get a quick snapshot of the possible financial performance of a property, try our basic investment calculator. 

For one-story buildings, anticipate 30-38% building coverage. This rule of thumb provides approximately 13,000 to 16,000 square feet of storage per acre. The ideal site would consist of 30′ to 40′ buildings with driveways so that all of the units face the outside with drive-up access. Customers love to be able to drive up to their own unit. The problem this creates is that it burns up a lot of land and you get only 30% coverage. In areas with high land costs it is not feasible to build this way anymore. The trend today is to build wide buildings and eliminate driveways. Developers are constructing buildings anywhere from 60- to 200-foot wide. This method allows you to increase your coverage up to 45%. However, if you build wide buildings, it is necessary to climate control the hallways. This ensures the units are rentable and will also increase your net revenue since climate control demands a higher price.

If you land has more than a ten-foot elevation change in it, it might be wise to build a two-story into a hill design. This design is superior to conventional two-story buildings because there is no need for stairs or elevators. Consequently, to the customer it seems like a one-story building. Since you use two floors, you will lose around 20% of the building to hallways, but you should still end up with over 40% building coverage. The negative of this design is that your grading costs and foundation/retaining wall costs are expensive.

With land costs escalating, many developers are looking to build two-, three-, or four-story buildings. With each story you build, you gain a lot of square footage, but each floor carries a lot of additional costs. Customers do not want to walk upstairs with their goods. So it is recommended that all multi-story buildings have elevators. Two-story buildings are the most common design. They typically can be built without sprinkler systems, while three- or four-story buildings normally need to have sprinkler systems. Regardless, with any multi-story building, you will lose around 25% of building due to hallways, stairs, elevators, etc. The cost of multi-story buildings typically runs at least $10-12 per square foot per floor.

We recommend that you look at the competition near you and your land costs to determine what type of building design you should construct. Check out our investment calculator to determine the amount of net rentable square footage you will need to have a viable self-storage project. 

I recommend that you talk to the building departments for the cities you are interested in developing in to find out what zoning you need to develop self storage. All cities have developed a city/county map that shows the zoning of all the land in the community. The process is much easier if you only pursue properly zoned land. If you want a zone change, I recommend you hire an expert to have a better chance for success.

While every self-storage owner dreams of building the perfect facility on the perfect site with perfect land conditions, in reality, this ideal site can be extremely hard to come by. In my opinion, if you can find a site that has the right price, location, and visibility, but is small, you can cut costs and make it work by being creative in the way you build or run it.

One way to increase net rentable square footage is to maximize the amount of units on the site by laying out wide one-story buildings with interior hallways, instead of narrow buildings with all exterior drive-up access. The buildings might be over 100 feet wide, which minimizes the need for driveways. If even more net rentable square footage is needed to make your project economically feasible, consider incorporating a multi-story building into your plan.

You must also take into account how you will manage the facility. In an ideal situation, you would have a manager on site everyday. If your site can only accommodate 200 units versus the 300-350 on a large site, you will need an alternative management approach in order to make your project economically feasible. One suggestion is to have the entire site run from a nearby business. Another idea is to build an office on your site, but lease it out to a business such as a carwash, tool rental, real estate office, etc. That business can then manage and rent your units out for you. The last option is to utilize an ATM-type machine to rent out your units, in combination with renting out units from your home.