October 1, 1997

5 Min Read
Devon Self-Storage

Devon Self-Storage

Stone Mountain, GA.

By Amber Nickell

When Pace, a chain of warehouse stores, went bankrupt in theearly '90s, it left dozens of spacious buildings empty. Kmartstepped in and bought the portfolio of properties--some weretransformed to Kmart stores, others were sold to Wal-Mart, butmany were left vacant.

One such building in Stone Mountain,Ga., caught the eye of The Devon Group, which owns 12self-storage facilities, including one in Amsterdam. However,Kmart was already in negotiations with a buyer for the property.When the deal fell through, Kmart offered the property to TheDevon Group, which accepted without hesitation, completingacquisition in April 1996.

"When we acquired it, it was a 97,759-square-foot boxsitting on 15 acres of land," says Ken Nitzberg, CEO of TheDevon Group. "The game plan was very simple: We convert theinside of the box to climate-controlled self-storage."

The conversion of the main building was completed in fourphases. It essentially required demolishing some of the existingareas, such as office space, lunch rooms and rest rooms anderecting the metal units. The result was 646 units in 66,538 netrentable square feet. The first phase opened in October, followedby November, January and February with the opening of the second,third and fourth phases.

But what makes Devon Self Storagedifferent from most conversions is the drive lane--which is wideenough for two semi trucks to drive side by side--that runsthrough the facility. After entering the property through theaccess-control gate, tenants with a unit in the main structuremust enter their code again to open the 14-by-14 foot roll-updoor that allows them to drive into the building. "If yourunit happens to be right on the drive lane, you drive right toit, park, roll up the door and you're right there," Nitzbergsays. "If your unit is further into the interior of thebuilding, you drive to the nearest hallway and park. You put yourbelongings on a cart (provided by the facility) and wheel them toyour unit." When tenants have concluded their business, theydrive to the exit, where a sensor opens the door--also a 14-by-14roll-up--and closes it behind them.

As a safety measure, traffic lights were installed at both theentry and exit. "When the customer enters his code, the doorwill start to raise and the red light comes on," says WayneRodgerson, project manager for the conversion. "Thecustomers are asked to wait for the green light. When the doorreaches the top, it hits a relay and only at that time does thegreen light come on. The same configuration is used for the reardoor."

The drive-through facility has generated curiosity from bothpotential tenants and competitors. "We've found that thedrive-through feature literally boggles our tenants' minds,"Nitzberg says. "They've never seen anything like it; they'venever experienced anything like it; they've never visualizedanything like it."

The convenience of a drive-throughfacility is multiplied during inclement weather. Although theceiling of the building reaches approximately 20 feet, the unitwalls are only 8-feet, 8-inches tall. Therefore, rather thanair-conditioning the individual units, the entire building iscooled and lighted from above. That means that during Georgia'swarm, humid summers (or any other time of year), tenants gostraight from their air-conditioned car into an air-conditionedbuilding and enjoy the climate control while loading or unloadingtheir units. In addition, tenants and their belongings areprotected from wind, rain, dust and other undesirable weather.

The open-top units allow for creative use of video cameras inthe main building. Rather than monitoring a single corridor orcorner, cameras are strategically mounted above the unitpartitions. From there, they can scan the entire building,including the inside of each unit. "If anyone tries to doanything and get over the top or in somebody else's unit, it'sreally easy to see them," Nitzberg says.

One of the problems with creating a drive-through self-storagefacility--which Devon has done with many of its properties--isdealing with the local planning authorities. "They don'tknow quite what to do with us," Nitzberg says. "Theminute you say, 'cars in the building,' the first mental picturethat comes to the mind of city officials is a parking garage with500 cars, with cars in and out all day long, non-stop."

This image raises concerns about exhaust fumes and leadsauthorities to suggest cost-prohibitive ventilation systems andother requirements for controlling air flow. But a self-storagefacility has nowhere near the traffic of a parkinggarage--Nitzberg estimates an average of one car an hour--sothere's little chance for emissions to accumulate.

"We usually end upspending a great deal of time educating the local regulatoryagencies as to how these things work, what the dangers and risksare, how minimal they are and what we do to mitigate them,"Nitzberg says. "Once we explain what we're doing and showsome examples of what we've done elsewhere, they usually arepretty good. Some of the cities have been a little morecontentious, a little more problematic than others, but in everycity, at the end of the day, it's been OK."

Most warehouse-type stores are accompanied by an expansiveparking lot, and the Devon property is no exception. In order tomake full use of the land and to support facility recognition,several standard self-storage buildings were constructed."We build those for a couple of reasons," Nitzbergsays. "One reason being some people don't want to go inside;they want to be able to drive right to their door all the time.Secondly, some people don't want to pay the premium rent forclimate control, so we have the non-climate control available aswell. Third, and probably most important, (potential) tenantsknow the property as the Pace store. No matter how many signs youput up, they still see the old Pace store in their mind's eyeuntil you build units on the outside with roll-up doors. Theminute you put those buildings up, everybody knows it's aself-storage facility."

As of April, fivenon-climate-controlled buildings had added an additional 91 unitsand 11,550 net rentable square feet to the facility. And withlease-up rates hitting and surpassing targets, Nitzberg says theproperty likely will see more construction in the future."We will build more (storage) space on what was the parkinglot and literally keep building until we've used up the space--aslong as the demand warrants."

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