Home sales boom helps drive growth in Bradenton places for you to self-store your stuff
The one constant in Manatee County, other than all the traffic on local highways, is the proliferation of self-storage units from Parrish to Cortez and from Bradenton to Lakewood Ranch.
Most recently, Manatee County Government Building and Development Services received an application for a site plan approval for Bayshore Self Storage, a 90,000-square-foot facility on the southeast corner of 53rd Avenue West and 34th Street West. The request was from Buckeye Land Investment LLC of Nokomis.
Other self storage projects underway include one on the site of the former Toys R Us at 512 Cortez Road W., and one at 3708 Manatee Ave. W., a site formerly occupied by W.T. Mobile Home Park.
The city of Bradenton has only one self-storage project underway, at the high profile intersection of First Street West and Manatee Avenue.
Within a 16-block area of Cortez Road West, there are three self-storage facilities. Compass Self Storage, 8915 Cortez Road W., and Hideaway Storage at 8400 Cortez Road W., are already open, and the three-story Patriot Self Storage facility on the northeast corner of 101st Street West and Cortez is nearing completion.
Patriot Self Storage, being built by Oden Hardy Construction of Bradenton, is actually one of the smaller facilities at 30,000 square feet, contractor Chris Perry said.
“There was a slowdown, and now there is a rush again with people moving here. There are no basements in Florida,” Perry said of places where a transplanted resident might typically store belongings
Mike Snipes, economics instructor at USF Sarasota-Manatee, says that all the new self storage units are a classic example of supply and demand related to the housing boom.
“We have so many houses changing hands now,” Snipes said. New residents and current residents changing houses often need a place to store their belongings while they are in transition, a process that can take months.
In a seller’s market like the Bradenton area, sellers may insert an occupancy clause in their sales contract that allows them to stay put until they can find another place to live. If that’s not OK with the buyer, then the seller can say, sorry, no sale.
“These are hot properties. There is going to continue to be a demand for self-storage units,” Snipes said.
Many self-storage companies are reportedly running at more than 90 percent occupancy.
Go Store It Self Storage has opened in space formerly occupied by Sears at the now defunct DeSoto Square mall.
Beyond Self Storage is seeking approvals to tear down the former Bradenton Health and Racquet Club building at 6500 Manatee Ave. W. and replace it with a new climate-controlled self storage facility, the Herald previously reported.
Combined for the Bradenton and Sarasota markets in April 2021, the reported median time to contract for existing single-family homes was seven days. It was 11 days for condos.
The boom in housing, and self-storage, is not unique to Bradenton.
In October, Forbes reported that the self-storage industry is recession-resistant and that investors are flocking to it.
In 2018, Midgard Self Storage Bradenton FL, LLC, paid $18.4 million for a pair of self storage facilities located at 8785 State Road 70 and 5246 Lena Road in East Manatee, believed to have been a record at the time.
This story was originally published June 9, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
