A New York-based real estate investment trust made a hefty play on the Miami-Dade County self-storage market with the $43.5 million purchase of two facilities.
Life Storage bought the buildings at 201 Northwest 37th Avenue and 6850 Southwest 81st Terrace in two deals. Entities tied to Kirchhoff Companies sold the buildings.
Life Storage paid $22.5 million for the eight-story, 142,207-square-foot building on 37th Avenue. The property, which is in Miami, was constructed in 2018, property records show. Kirchhoff’s affiliate bought the 0.7-acre lot in 2016 for $1.3 million.
In the smaller deal, Life Storage paid nearly $21 million for the 104,061-square-foot, four-story building on 81st Terrace. The 1.8-acre property is in an unincorporated part of south Miami-Dade County near Kendall. Kirchhoff bought the building in 2017 for $8.7 million, property records show.
Founded in 1986 by Joseph Kirchhoff, New York-based Kirchhoff is a developer, investor and manager in multifamily, student housing, medical facilities and retail real estate, according to its website.
Life Storage, which also is the name of its branded self-storage facilities, has a portfolio of roughly 1,000 properties totaling more than 67 million square feet in 34 states, according to its website. Founded in 1982 as a financial planner, it opened its first property three years later in Florida. Life Storage is led by Joseph Saffire.
Self storage is a relatively stable property type fueled by demand throughout economic fluctuations, resulting in appetite from investors for South Florida facilities.
Extra Space Storage bought a Margate industrial building and next-door parking lot for $22.1 million in October.
In June, Value Store It Management bought a Jupiter facility and another near Greenacres for a combined $35.3 million. This came on the heels of CubeSmart purchasing a Weston self-storage building for $11.5 million in April.