Last week during a chat with Buster Owens of Rabco, he mentioned an interesting trend: self-storage attached to retail. I'm not talking about self-storage in the vicinity of a nearby mini-mall; but physically attached to one. In the front would be your typical mini-mall fare: a book store, nail and hair salon, sub shop and other retail. There would also be an entrance, or a path, leading to a multi-story, climate-controlled self-storage facility. Does anyone have any experience with this?

I have had customers reserve the frontage portion of their property for retail and build typical storage buildings behind it on long, narrow plots. There is also an interesting topic here about building Mini-Office-Warehouses:
Mini-office-warehouse
Retail combined with climate control is an interesting idea but would probably face a huge zoning battle. You'd probably want the loading/unloading to be in the back - out of sight of the retail customers.

Steve Smith
Custom Site Plans
SteveSmith@ByteOne.com

Hello acampbell!!

you might be interested in seeing what Greg Call has started out in CA. In has married a number of real estate property types together in a rather unique configuration. His website is http://www.cargo-bay.com/

MisterJim444

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Learning Never Ends

That would great for us, to live onsite and have our Karate School next door. I guess a girl can dream!

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Proud Karate Mom

We visited a facility called Sheridan Park Self Storage in Bluffton, SC recently (my husband loves to visit storage facilities when we are on vacation out of state)

Anyway, the office was the end unit in a strip mall, with the resident manager living upstairs. Behind the entire strip mall were 600+ fenced-in units, climate controlled and not, and also RV parking spaces. The gate and driveway entrance were next to the office at the end of the strip mall.

We found it very interesting, loads of parking in front, lots of potential customers going by visiting all the other stores, doctor offices, etc.

I looked for a website, but couldn't find one.