Strategic Storage Trust II Inc. (SST II), a public, non-traded, self-storage real estate investment trust (REIT) sponsored by SmartStop Asset Management LLC, has purchased Storage West in Port St. Lucie, Fla. The property at 525 S.W. South Macedo Boulevard is in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach Metropolitan Statistical Area. The four-building facility sits on 3.56 acres and comprises 53,100 rentable square feet of storage space in 530 units. Built in 1999, it includes drive-up and climate-controlled storage as well as RV parking.

"We targeted this self-storage facility due to its high occupancy level and solid location," said H. Michael Schwartz, CEO and chairman of SST II.

The buyer and the seller, a private investor, were represented in the transaction by two representatives from commercial real estate firm Marcus & Millichap: Michael Mele, senior vice president of investments in the Tampa, Fla., office and senior director of the firm’s National Self Storage Group (NSSG), and Luke Elliott, another director of NSSG.

"The sale demonstrates another example of the industry's consolidation by large institutional owners within the current market who understand the value of a well-maintained, well-located asset run by a local owner/operator,” Mele said.

The SST II portfolio currently includes 43,000 self-storage units and approximately 4.7 million rentable square feet of storage space. It’s the asset manager for 69 facilities in Toronto and the United States. SmartStop Asset Management also sponsors Strategic Storage Growth Trust Inc., a public, non-traded REIT also focused on self storage assets.

Marcus & Millichap is a commercial-property investment firm with more than 1,500 investment professionals in offices throughout the United States and Canada. The company closed more than 8,700 transactions in 2015 with a value of approximately $37.8 billion.

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