As January comes to a close most of the presents of the holiday season have probably found a place in our homes. Shelves are a bit heavier. Closets are a bit fuller. Unclaimed space is a bit rarer. The success of the retail industry shows itself in our collective burgeoning homes and as the spring approaches there will be Americans looking to find new homes for possessions they can’t fit, but don’t want to part with. Similar to the growth of digital space in the cloud, the displacement of our excess stuff to an out-of-sight location can be perceived as utilizing an endless amount of space with little repercussion, but this strengthening trend has fueled an industry in the business of taking up space while giving little back.
Over the past three decades the self-storage industry has ballooned to include over 48,500 facilities in the U.S. generating annual revenues of over $24 billion according to the Self Storage Association. Self-storage facilities can take on two main forms. The first is a low, sprawling development often limited to one storey tall and common to the suburban development pattern where land is less expensive. The other is taller structures that stack floors of storage closets on top of each other in urban environments either through the conversion of existing warehouses or the demolition of low structures to make room for a tower of closets. Regardless of the form, self storage can be perhaps best viewed as an “amenity” that adds nothing to its surrounding environment.
In Queenborough Plaza–a hub in one of New York’s outer boroughs– three storage facilities have recently materialized within a three block radius, all of them at least 8 stories tall. While some development efforts have tried to promote life around the subway stop and its newly renovated public park with residential, office and retail locations, giant storage containers remove sites from street life contribution and make entire blocks less desirable. What began to grow into a perfect case of transit oriented development has been challenged by development that brings value to landowners at the cost of stripping it from the neighborhood.
A rendering of one of Queensborough’s new self storage facilities.
As a piece of program, these facilities do nothing to productively support a walkable environment. They provide no interaction with sidewalk traffic (and as a result do nothing to promote it). Like parking lots, self storage buildings stand as missing teeth of activity amidst a streetscape by using sidewalk real estate for program that one can only use by driving to it. While they may make their owners an extra buck, their presence depreciates strength of the urban realm around them. As I read through a book by urban planner Jeff Speck, his words point to these types of projects that “have matched the uninviting streetscape with equally antisocial private buildings, completing a public realm that is unsafe, uncomfortable and just plain boring.”
The Nature of the Beast
As yet another piece of evidence to the inherent sustainability of our culture, of the 59,500 self storage facilities in the world, 81.5% are located here in the U.S. of A. As of 2013 nearly 9% of the households in the country use self storage, an increase of 50% from 1995. The reason certainly isn’t because we throw less away. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, as of 2012 we handily produced more municipal waste than any country in the world.
Perhaps most of the space is used by urban dwellers with those pesky small apartments? Not so. Of those who use self storage, 68% live in single family homes while 65% have a garage, 45% have an attic and 33% have a basement. There are also less short stays than one might think. Rather than the quick layover in between moves, 22% rent space with a horizon of 1-2 years with another 30% anticipating to pay for someone to store their stuff for over 2 years.
Beyond being a poor neighbor, each self storage facility is a representation of an unsustainable cultural trend built around the accumulation of stuff. In the years rolling up to the great financial recession the business model came into its prime. It took the self storage industry 25 years to build its first billion square feet of space. The second billion only took eight (1998-2005). Now we have arrived at a point where 7.3 square feet of storage exists for every man, woman and child in the United States. I admire the gusto of a quote from the Self Storage Association:
“It is physically possible that every American could stand – all at the same time – under the total canopy of self storage roofing.”
It is hard to decide which aspect of this growing trend is most troublesome. It could be that we are somehow able to be the country that simultaneously stores the most stuff and throws the most away. Or it might be that we have devoted so many resources to storing possessions and with only 9% of the country partaking. Where will we be by 2030?
Holes in the Landscape
Proponents can be quick to point out a growing trend of self storage facilities incorporating rooftop solar arrays to help offset their electrical needs. It is true that a standard storage stop uses relatively little energy other than an office and some area lighting, but the real energy footprint is in the structures themselves and the uses they are displacing. The latent energy in construction is baked into the fabrication, shipping and erecting of materials. Given the goal of keeping costs down, the quick construction and cheap materials make it unlikely much of it is going to be eventually recycled upon demolition.
While uninspiring, the trend is not all that surprising. Our homes have inflated in size over the past three decades, filled with rooms crafted around functions we no longer use. Municipalities can and should take a more proactive approach in crafting their zoning resolutions to guide storage facilities to areas where they make the most sense.
Image Credit: my.whirlwindsteel.com
January 27, 2015 at 1:14 pm
Fine point you have here. This actually got me thinking about the overall safety of theses big box or sprawling behemoths. I can actually attest to the low security measures of such places. It’s not as if anyone actually checked what I was putting into storage, begging the question. How safe are the security measures of these facilities really? Large storehouses in located in the heart of major city centers sometimes accessible at all hours with usually just one person (if anyone at all) working at the location. Seems like a very vulnerable and underestimated location for mischievous activity.
January 29, 2015 at 10:59 am
These are some incredible stats. To think we use over 2 billion sq.ft. of storage for 9% of households and this trend is rising. Thanks for shedding some light on this under reported trend.
April 28, 2015 at 1:59 pm
This is bogus. High density self storage facilities provide a huge amenity to communities. While they aren’t sexy environments that promote socializing, they enable ‘in town’ living, entrepreneurship and dynamic work environments. It’s inconvenient and not energy efficient to expect people living in cities to travel to industrial zones or remote areas to access their goods. Not all real estate projects can be inspiring but they all should strive to be designed respectfully and fit in aesthetically to communities. Cities need to stop ‘black listing’ self storage facilities and instead begin working with developers to create well designed projects. Also, self storage facilities pay full property taxes but hardly place any burden on cities infrastructure (ie. traffic, schools, utilities).
I wonder if the author was inspired during the recession by all the empty, cool and sexy high rise condos in many cities that brought homeowners to their knees. Those were very uninspiring in my opinion.
April 28, 2015 at 3:04 pm
Nitesh,
Thanks for stopping by. The question isn’t whether or not self storage can be seen as an amenity, it’s whether or not that amenity is actually contributing productively to the urban landscape. People can call a free standing parking garage an amenity, but the fact is that it decimates a streetscape and does more for people traveling into the city than the people that are breathing life into its streets. The vibrancy of the sidewalk is by far the most important amenity that urban environments utilize–that define and fuel their culture.
There is also nothing about “in-town” living that necessitates needing tons of stuff. If self storage is facilitating needless consumption because it’s able to provide a cheap, dark hole that can be easily forgotten about while at the expense of the urban environment then it seems hard to say it’s worthwhile, let alone a vital amenity.
Developers can work to incorporate more tenant storage in apartment/condo projects in order to relieve the use for separate storage facilities–a much more reasonable solution with fewer detrimental effects.
I would imagine that curbing the mirage of limitless consumption would only dampen the impulse for people to buy space that they can’t really afford (that end up as empty apartments in a recession). Free standing storage facilities contribute to that problem more than depress it.
January 11, 2016 at 10:47 pm
I really don’t see what’s so horrible about having a self storage facility on your block. I mean there are so many people who need self storage in their life and if there is a safe and secure place where you can keep your things at just around the corner then that’s a good thing isn’t it? At the end, it’s utility over aesthetics after all!
January 18, 2016 at 12:22 am
Eric, thanks for stopping by. I think there are two things in response to your question. The first is whether or not having a self storage facility on your block is all that horrible. I’m of the belief that the answer is yes, especially in an urban setting.
You are right that utility and aesthetics are both important for a successful environment, but there is a great amount of utility involved in creating a successful streetscape. Streets that people use are those that foster walkable environments, usually supported by a built environment that interacts with pedestrians. A street without any sidewalk interaction has no pedestrians, because what would they be there to do? Those streets become vacant, lonely and potentially unsafe. A lack of these kinds of “utility” undermine the very drivers of urban living to begin with.
The other deeper question is why people really need that much self storage in their life in the first place? How much utility is there in having lots of things that we use infrequently enough to store for months, let alone years? Is the underlying consumption really that necessary and are we storing things we need or will even ever use again in earnest? There is a use for storage facilities that help people secure a short term solution to scheduling conflicts like relocating or job changes, but excessive deployment of these services just helps enable wastefulness through easy access of cheap, unneeded space.
December 11, 2016 at 10:17 pm
Self-storage satisfies a need or desire for many individuals and businesses. It may not be a need of yours, but a need nonetheless. You or I may not utilize the services of a taxidermy shop, tatoo parlor, shoe repair store, casino, barber or beauty shop, tavern, or metal fabrication shop, but many others do. You also speak of whether an amenity is contributing productively to the urban landscape. What about water and sewer treatment facilities, gas stations, steel plants, or a host of other facilities? Many of these are located in the heart of a community. Most would say they detract from the urban landscape as well.
December 23, 2016 at 8:20 pm
Steve, thanks for stopping by.
I think that some portion of self-storage satisfies a need, while another portion of it is just enabling waste, but I don’t think the fact that they are used necessitates or even justifies their deployment over urban neighborhoods. Airports satisfy a need of Americans, but that doesn’t mean I would put one on a Main Street in a community.
I also think we’re not comparing apples to apples with your list. I agree that individual shops could cater to certain portions of society more than others, but your list is mostly single retail operations that can fit inside one of thousands of spaces created for public business. Could a self-storage facility ever fit into a space created for a restaurant, or a drug store or a tattoo parlor? Instead, they not only claim the whole streetscape, but all of the space above it as well. These examples of yours are also all pieces of program that actually DO engage with the public and people on the streetscape. In my mind they are the direct opposite of a self-storage facility in being exactly what we want.
When it comes to pieces of highly industrialized uses, we zone for heavy industrial uses for a reason. We do not (or try our best to avoid) build apartments and retail strips next to sewage treatment plants or steel plants. While I am a proponent for artisan industrial being mixed in with other use types, I think that sewage treatment and self-storage falls into the same category of adding nothing to a pedestrian environment and, as a result, should be located accordingly.