DEVELOPMENT DETAILS

Parkway Self Storage

Bluffton, South Carolina

By Elizabeth Ferrin

The property was amazing—and filled with potential. Fronted by a busy highway in the low country area of South Carolina, the site was both scenic and visible. In fact, the location held so much promise that the owners decided to purchase the land before developing a solid concept as to what exactly would be constructed on the site.

“We had just bought a big chunk of land,” says Tim Dolnik, who owns Parkway Self Storage, LLC, along with Bob Dumler. “We also wanted to get into a cash flow business.” After stumbling onto the concept of self storage, Dolnik realized a storage facility could be a perfect fit for the newly purchased property.

After researching the industry in the area, the developers soon found that there were very few self-storage businesses serving the local community. Of the few facilities that were operating in the area, most were at or close to full occupancy. Although the property owners had no previous experience in the industry, they saw an opportunity and decided to move forward with a next eneration, Class-A self-storage development.

Strict Design Guidelines
While the decision to build a self-storage facility was relatively straightforward, designing a building to meet all of the city’s strict guidelines was daunting. “The site is on a highly traveled highway in Bluffton, S.C.,” says Dolnik. “There are an incredible amount of stringent requirements for architecture on the corridor.”

One of the main guidelines required all development in the area to fit in with the local low country-style homes and buildings that dotted the highway corridor. Unique to the flat, coastal areas of the Carolinas and Georgia, low country architecture utilizes Southern, plantation-style details and often incorporates spacious verandas and an abundance of windows throughout the building. Although these types of design features are striking, they are also time consuming and expensive to add to a self-storage development. After carefully weighing the costs, the developers decided they were willing to pay the price for the extra aesthetic features in exchange for the ability to develop such a highly visible site. “We had to really dress up the facility,” says Dolnik. “We started by adding a four foot decorative stucco fence around the entire facility.” The developers also included a stucco façade on the two street facing sides of the building—an especially important design concession since one of the streets is a highly traveled parkway carrying up to 25,000 cars per day.

The roof was also modified to reflect the area’s low country style. The architect included varying roof lines to add to the aesthetics of the building. “We added five pop-ups, which are like cupolas, along the roof lines,” says Dolnik. He quickly adds that the design also called for a two-story portion of the project, which is a stand out feature making the project significantly taller than most buildings in the low country area. Construction Challenges

Once the design was approved by the town of Bluffton, the developers were given the green light and began construction on their self-storage facility. However, the crew quickly ran into a series of challenges. The first issue involved the elevation of the site. The four acres of property designated for the self-storage facility was especially low, sitting at approximately five to 25 feet above sea level. With only one small retention pond, it soon became clear that the site would need some additional elevation in order to compensate for the added asphalt and subsequent runoff water at the site. Several loads of fill dirt were trucked in to raise the entire site and porous pavement was added to soak in water and help reduce runoff into the retention pond. The aesthetic pop-ups on the roof also added an unexpected level of complexity to the project. “These cupolas aren’t very typical in a self-storage facility and it took awhile to get the right crew in there who had done a similar roof,” says Dolnik. “We went through three or four crews on site to get the roof right in keeping the inclement weather on the outside, but eventually we found an experienced crew who had done these types of pop-ups.”

There was also some confusion as to the fire rating requirements for the property. Early on in the construction process, the developers were under the assumption that a specific fire rating would be required for the entire building. After construction was well underway, the town informed the developers that the property actually needed to meet a higher fire standard. “The town said that because we were a self-storage facility we had to put noncombustible sheetrock throughout the site

because of the potential for tenants to store combustible materials—even though our lease clearly says not to,” says Dolnik. With the construction problems solved, the development team put the final finishing touches on the project and watched proudly as Parkway Self Storage opened its doors on July 7, 2008. The new, stateof- the-art facility stretched out over 82,000 square feet offering customers 735 units in a variety of sizes as well as RV and boat storage. The project is capped off with a Class-A rental office featuring all of the features and amenities one would expect from a facility with so many exterior design details. “Parkway Self Storage is a perfect example of how far the exterior designs of self-storage buildings have changed over the last 20 years,” says Tom Byrum, national sales manager at Tacoma, Wash.-based Tech-Fast Self Storage Buildings. “More municipalities are requiring storage facilities to look and feel anything but the standard, average facility from the past. This facility is not only aesthetically pleasing to the community, but it is functional as well.”

Warm Welcome
The community’s reaction to Parkway Self Storage has also been extremely positive. After only three weeks in operation, the facility reached a 20 percent occupancy rate. At press time, the business was more than 40 percent occupied and growing. In addition to all of the aesthetic elements, the owners credit much of the facility’s success to its location. “About 85 to 90 percent of our customers are walk-ins who saw or drove by the facility,” says Dolnik. “While you definitely won’t find many self-storages in our area who pay for a location like we did, we feel our investment has paid off tenfold.”

With an excellent location and continued growth, the future looks bright for Parkway Self Storage. While there is no room for expansion at the current site, the facility owners say they may consider purchasing or building a second self-storage property at some point down the road. For now, they are focused on serving both their customers and the community to ensure the day-to-day business at Parkway Self Storage shines just as brightly as the building’s highly-aesthetic, low country-inspired exterior.

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Elizabeth Ferrin is a freelance writer based in Maple Grove, Minnesota. She is also a frequent contributor to the Mini-Storage Messenger, Mobile Self-Storage Magazine, Self- Storage Now!, and RV & Boat Storage Today.