How Two Companies Are Changing The Personal Storage Business
Ever clean the garage and it looks almost the same as when you started?
Despite arranging and re arranging there is never enough room.
If you’re like most homeowners you might manufacture a small shed behind the garage, or rent a storage unit stop by.
Or you could buy a garage condo, if you live in the right state.
Garagetown USA has taken the notion of a place to store your junk for homeowners, or a place to keep business supplies for small businesses, and turned it into showcases for your toys and meeting places for businesses.
It’s done with ownership and attitude. Most storage units are austere places with narrow hallways, barely heated in the winter and a sweatbox in the summer. Yet, according to Garagetown USA website, Tom Johnson, founder and owner, noticed that people were spending time at these units regardless. Couple that with most people having too much stuff in the house and garage, and a concept was born. It was fourteen years before he found financing. Eventually he did, and the plan has grown from a single location to six states, including Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Texas and Washington state. Perhaps it’s the nature of the West, where everything is larger and bigger, but accordingly there are national expansion plans.
It’s the ownership that makes the difference. When you rent anything you have to follow the rules of the landlord. When you purchase your Garagetown USA “condo” you received a titled deed, like any other piece of real estate. The units you purchase look like stout corrigated metal buildings, with a service door and a large overhead door, but you can get a lot more.
Because it’s yours you can control who enters the unit, and what types of extras you can add. You can include high speed internet, cable and totally customize the look of your place, from the flooring to the color scheme. Unlike conventional storage units, many of which restrict access, these units are available 24 hours a day. A typical unit is 48 feet long and has garage doors 14 feet high, which makes it ideal for the Recreational Vehicle crowd. Some recall consecutive units, allowing for 96 feet of set.
Other benefits to ownership include possible appreciation on the real estate, the ability to do property swaps when you need to, and the feeling of a club membership. Many men, especially, use the large space to store the big boy toys, boats, motorcycles and classic cars. There is a club house too, like many condo units for people, where you can spy big camouflage TV, use the fridge or simply hang out. Carrie Berlund, marketing and sales director, says the units vary in price, from $53, 000 to $80,000.
Unlike some other companies that will turn your personal garage into a guy’s den or whatever, Garagetown and others like it have taken the understanding further by having the area apart. Little businesses are attracted to this understanding, because they don’t usually have enough storage place at home and more than likely have no set to entertain or meet with customers.
Storage Condominiums, Inc. is a company with a similar concept that is staking territory back East, in Ohio. Here, too, you buy your place and can use it for personal storage or for business.
For years the storage business has been dominated by a number of immense companies and smaller mom and pop’s. Neither used much imagination, and in some cases, made storage a problem as opposed to a solution by restricting hours and making the units inhospitable to man and beast.
Garagetown USA and Storage Condominiums are changing the idea that junk is honest junk, to be stacked and stored. After all, one person’s junk is another’s treasure, and most treasures need proper demonstrate.
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Filed under Small Business Phone Service by on Mar 29th, 2011. 