Stow me the money: SecureSpace makes big Bay Area self-storage buy

SoCal-based company says portfolio deal with competitor is its largest ever

SecureSpace’s Nathan McElmurry  with  6880 Santa Teresa Boulevard (LinkedIn, Google Maps)
SecureSpace’s Nathan McElmurry with 6880 Santa Teresa Boulevard in San Jose (LinkedIn, Google Maps)

UPDATED, 2:05 p.m., August 12SecureSpace Self Storage has acquired 11 properties in the Bay Area, Portland and Texas from a competitor, strengthening its presence in Silicon Valley and the East Bay as part of the largest deal in its four-year history.

Torrance, California-based SecureSpace purchased more than 650,000 square feet of storage space from Central Self Storage, expanding the buyer’s footprint into Texas, it wrote in a Wednesday news release. While financial terms of the portfolio sale weren’t disclosed, six properties in Antioch, Milpitas, San Jose, and Portland collectively sold for almost $154.4 million, or about $329 a square foot, from July 29 through Wednesday, according to title service records and public documents.

The sale prices of the remaining facilities — spread across Berkeley and San Leandro in the East Bay and Austin and Bee Cave in Texas — haven’t been recorded in those jurisdictions or aren’t publicly available. Those properties are in markets with higher rents than Antioch, Milpitas, San Jose, and Portland, industry sources said. Higher rents equate to a higher price per square foot, so it’s likely that the Texas, Berkeley and San Leandro facilities collectively sold for well north of $329 a square foot, sources said.

SecureSpace and Pegasus Group, which owns Central and put the portfolio up for sale in the first quarter, didn’t respond to or follow up on requests for comment. JLL’s Brian Somoza and Steve Mellon, who brokered the deal, didn’t respond to calls and emails seeking comment.

The deal expands SecureSpace’s U.S. portfolio to 42 properties, seven more than Central’s. It cements its presence in the Bay Area and establishes a foothold in Austin, both attractive self-storage markets.

Five of the 10 most expensive U.S. cities for renting storage units are in the Bay Area, according to the latest data from self-storage listing site StorageCafe. While the data show the average cost to rent a 10-foot-by-10-foot unit in Austin is about 30 percent less than in San Jose, which has a similarly sized population, Texas’ capital city was seventh-most-popular for self-storage searches in the U.S. last year, according to Google Ads.

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In the Bay Area, SecureSpace has acquired four development sites since last year, spanning San Jose, Vallejo in the North Bay, and Martinez and Richmond in the East Bay, according to its website. The company paid $15.3 million to acquire nearly 21 acres across those cities, title service records show. InSite Property Group, SecureSpace’s parent corporation, is working on redeveloping the land into four self-storage facilities that combined offer 382,000 square feet of rentable space. Those projects are under construction, according to InSite’s website, which also lists as under development a 127,000-square-foot SecureSpace facility in Walnut Creek.

SecureSpace acquired Pegasus’ portfolio through various limited liability companies, all of which share an address with GLP Capital Partners’ Santa Monica office. That’s not a coincidence: the company is GLP Capital’s self-storage brand.

GLP Capital, which says it manages more than $5 billion in logistics and self-storage real estate, declined to disclose the portfolio’s physical occupancy rate at the time of sale.

SecureSpace took out a $183.4 million loan from PGIM Real Estate to finance its portfolio acquisition, title service records show. The adjustable-rate mortgage, in the form of a deed of trust, has a maturity date of Aug. 9, 2025, records show. It can be extended by two years if certain conditions are met.

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Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that SecureSpace acquired several properties in the Bay Area before purchasing Pegasus Group’s portfolio.