Adding Curb Appeal and Value to Aging Self-Storage Facilities

March 2018 Mini-Storage Messenger Vendor Spotlight

Owner/Operators on R3

1. “We added $1,437/unit straight to the bottom line in the first year alone.”
2. “We’re going for Facility of the Year.”
3. “Our managers were getting hurt using doors that were cracking under the weight of multiple coats of paint.”

Three different operators, three different reasons for turning to the experts at Janus International to restore, rebuild, and replace their worn down facilities and transform their underutilized space.

Why R3?

Self-storage is at a crossroads. Occupancies are high while stores age with little to no maintenance.  It makes sense: get while the getting is good, right?  Well, maybe not.  Year after year units stay full while doors and hallways get banged, bumped, and worst yet: burglarized. Revenue continues to trickle in, but year after year price concessions get larger and larger as these outdated sites go untouched and depreciate in value.

Bad goes to worse when a large operator enters a market where competition is already fierce and builds an ultra modern self-storage facility with the latest amenities in a prime location.

To compete with the new high tech large operators and other nearby modern stores, older facilities give concessions or they get quite literally get crushed. Eventually, more and more tenants gravitate to the modern facilities and the older locations are no longer viable. That's when bulldozers move in and demolish the storage buildings and developers replace them with more profitable real estate classes.

Think it’s time to sit idly by while your business is bulldozed? Think again. The leading global experts in the design, manufacturing, and installation of turnkey self-storage building solutions have you covered.

Restore. Rebuild. Replace.

According to independent Industry research,  up to 20,000 self-storage sites around the U.S. are unsafe, outdated, and space is underutilized.  These aging facilities—some of them 30-to-40 years old—are competing against larger stores with sophisticated marketing engines, name recognition, and a litany of new technology and service offerings.  From motion controlled LED lighting to in-unit infrared sensors that instantly detect intruders to mobile gate and unit access and monitoring, the self-storage being built today is no longer a mere ‘facility,’ it’s an experience.

"We have a maturation cycle that has changed the self-storage climate so old facilities may be dysfunctional and unsafe, with not very secure doors, so there is a big risk of compromising security, safety, and functionality,” says Troy Bix, president of Janus International’s R3 division. The genesis of R3 is to add value to the site. It's taking 30-to-40 years of self-storage building and bringing them up to market relevance and adding value to them."

R3 (Restore, Rebuild, and Replace) is the next frontier in self-storage. R3 is reinvigorating the face of self-storage as evidenced by the, which are actively engaged in R3 when they acquire older properties.

With Janus R3, medium and independent operators can upgrade their sites and brand image to attract and retain customers.

The Many Ways You’ll Benefit from R3

Optimize space with MASS relocatable units.  Portable, affordable, and no new building permits required! Within 48 hours of delivery, MASS units are typically installed and ready to rent.

Add seamless and sophisticated door security and mobile access with the Nokē® Smart Entry system. 

Capture the rapidly expanding millennial demographic with a fully automated experience and the convenience of one touch security authentication, gate entry, and unit monitoring.

Mix it up!  Younger tenants love kayaks, paddleboard, ATV, and other smaller space items.

In some cases, remixing the layout of a facility may include adding a second story level. This change up to doubles monthly ROI.

Bring your facility up to code: Janus doors are the only doors in the Industry that achieve ADA compliance.

Swapping out doors adds curb appeal. A coat of paint can’t fix a dent.  The experts at Janus have this down to a science.  In the time it takes to play 18 holes of golf, 20 doors can be completely swapped by the Janus installation team.

R3 gives you the flexibility to reskin hallways in addition to replacing your doors. Reskin a hallway in as little as 24 hours and in most cases it’ll be done without opening any doors!

What’s Next?

Janus recently introduced the R3 Rewards Program, which lets owners and operators reap a wide variety of benefits for upgrading their facility. Some of these upgrades range from installing Moveable Additional Storage Structures (MASS), replacing all your aging steel doors, installing cloud-based security solutions, and more. 

The R3 Rewards Program offers benefits that will allow you to charge higher rental rates, impress your customers and potential clients by the curb appeal of new doors, heighten the safety and functionality of your facility, and prove to your customer that happiness is a priority to your business.

These rewards are an addition to the benefits you'll already get from upgrading your self-storage facility. R3 operators have reported rental increases from 10 percent-to-15 percent initially as the result of facility improvements. In fact, Green Street Advisors, which provides real estate data and analytics for clients, conducted a study that found that R3 sites raised rents 2.5 times faster than non-R3 sites.

Janus R3 offers certain tax and insurance benefits along with a potential reduction in liability resulting from unsafe doors and other equipment.

Ready to learn more? Click here to watch the customer R3 testimonial video.