Tucson wanted infill development, right?
Well, we’re getting it.
But it’s not so much the mixed-use, residential-retail-office complexes that people covet these days.
Tucson’s new urbanism is taking the form of self-storage. From Tanque Verde to Sahuarita, Vail to Marana, new self-storage businesses are filling up a surprisingly large number of the metro area’s undeveloped spots.
There are economic reasons for this, and social reasons, and reasons related to the housing market.
But let me tell you about the root cause.
Back in 2021, I went to a self-storage facility in St. Paul with my brother and dad. My parents had rented two storage units for about six years, since moving out of the house they lived in for decades.
Arriving there, I was determined to consolidate the two units down to one, so we started sorting through stuff. And in one loosely packed cardboard box I found something I couldn’t quite figure out — a large piece of wood.
I asked my dad, an occasional scavenger, what it was. His answer: It was a hunk of tree root that he’d found years before and stashed away because it looked cool and he thought he’d use it.
There are many reasons for the boom in the self-storage business around Tucson and the United States, but the main one is that people aren’t getting rid of their stuff. In 2021, Tim Steller discovered this scavenged tree root in a cardboard box in a storage unit his parents were renting.
That, dear readers, is the root cause of the self-storage boom.
At transitions in life — especially when older people downsize out of bigger homes to smaller living spaces — people stash stuff in storage units. Then they get in the habit of paying those rental fees, month after month: maybe $60 on the cheap end, $300 a month for the bigger units.
In many cases it’s easier to pay the rent than to sort through the stuff. When the things have sentimental value, they’re hard to part with and easier to leave stashed away.
Storage business is hot
So, across metro Tucson, an area seemingly well-stocked with storage businesses, new self-storage projects are blossoming.
In Sahuarita, two new ones are in the works. In Oro Valley, there are three in permitting stages with others in the idea phase. One was just completed and two others are in permitting in unincorporated Pima County, and there are fully five self-storage projects in permitting phases in Marana. This is all leaving aside the evident boom in Tucson proper.
The business is so hot, that if you search for “self storage” on a podcast platform, you’ll find numerous shows dedicated to the industry.
“The Self-Storage Investing Podcast,” “Self Storage Playbook,” “Hacking Self Storage,” “Storage Investor Nation,” and “The Self Storage University Podcast” are among the titles.
I tried to force myself to listen but could not face it.
Instead, I spoke with a few local insiders who have made a living off self-storage, for years or even decades. They pointed to a variety of factors that make self-storage such a big business right now.
Perhaps the biggest is that it is considered a recession-proof business, or even counter-recessionary.
“The demand increases as the economy suffers,” said Bill Alter, a Tucson real estate broker who has spent decades in the self-storage business. “Recession is good for self-storage,”
The growth cycles in the economy are also good for self-storage, he and others noted. It’s just a generally good business, whatever the economic cycle.
One of the big developers of these projects in recent years has been Abraham Slilaty. He’s a relative newcomer to the self-storage business, having developed apartments, manufactured-home projects, commercial centers and offices in previous decades.
Starting in 2015 or so, he told me, he got into self storage.
“All of those development types tend to be cyclic with the economic cycles — except storage,” Slilaty said.
The projects are also relatively cheap to build and especially inexpensive to run. All it takes is a couple of employees and paying utility bills.
‘Reluctant to part with their stuff’
Slilaty notes that it’s not just people stashing their generational stuff in the units. One of the trends bolstering the business is the one toward smaller homes.
“Housing prices are quite high, so the average home is not only getting pricier throughout the country it’s getting smaller,” he said. “It’s more cost-efficient to live in a smaller home and have a storage unit you rent as an extension of your house.”
There are also the bands that keep their amps and drum sets in storage units, landscapers who stash their tools there, university students who store their belongings over the summer, and, notoriously, the occasional person who lives in a storage unit — against the rules.
But the root cause of the growth in self-storage business remains what you’d expect.
“The bottom line reason why is that American are reluctant to part with their stuff,” Alter said.
Trace Fife, a former Tucsonan who moved to Minnesota last year, told me he worked in three self-storage businesses here, a job he took between working on political campaigns. The vast majority of customers were residential users.
“Probably a good chunk of our renters were elderly folks,” he said. “They’d downsize but save everything and store it. It would remain there until they passed away or sold it.”
This, of course, means that property with potential for other uses is instead simply storing our stuff. Slilaty recently developed a project at 4068 E. Fort Lowell Road that operates under the name Storage King — one of many big brands in the storage business.
This is part of a bigger project that horseshoes around an apartment complex on Fort Lowell, just east of the Storage King and the apartment complex, his next storage project is going up. It will include space for boats and RVs.
Across the street from both of these projects: Fort Lowell Self Storage, a more old-advantaged business, existing since 1984, with units that face the outdoors and have garage-style doors. In contrast, Slilaty’s projects are all climate-controlled, and he tries to make them look good. One he’s developing, on the west side of Interstate 10 at West Grant Road, will be seven stories high.
“Ours are attractive – they look like office buildings,” he said.
More storage units a development choice
Indeed, he tends to build a large square footage on a small space. A project he’s building between East Tanque Verde and North Wilmot roads is packed on to a small site behind Mister Car Wash, where Hooters used to be.
“There’s a need for what we build in the areas where we build them,” Slilaty said. “We are not competing or getting in the way of new housing coming in. We facilitate the newer projects that are smaller or more affordable. We solve a problem.”
Of course, even if the storage businesses serve a purpose, these are still properties that could have been put to a more fundamental use — say, housing itself — if people were holding onto less stuff.
When I brought up the topic on Facebook, Tucsonan Gabriel Sleighter put his feelings this way: “
I’m not a fan, in my opinion they create dead space for urban activity and remove opportunities for meaningful infill development.”
True enough. But if we insist on holding onto our stuff, this is the urban development we’ve chosen. That’s the root.
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