Self Storage Conversion Feasibility - Cincinnati Northern KY

[David Hildebrandt]

I own a few multifamilies and certainly understand valuing an existing building, or in this case business on NOI. My questions revolve around converting an existing building to Self Storage.

How do you assess the market viability of adding self storage to an area?

How many self storage units needed to satisfy a certain population?

Traffic count a must, or online presence somewhat negates that need?

What ball park of income can you generate/sq ft of conditioned storage space?

$1.8M Building we are considering is 100,000 sq ft, but really divided up into two distinct portions, the original single story 50k sq ft footprint, and a new two story addition at 27k sq ft per floor. The reason the deal interested me is the seller wants to stay on as a tenant in the two story section for 24 months, which, in theory would allow us the time to retrofit the other 50,000 sq ft to conditioned self storage and hopefully our mortgage is covered.

I understand the situation will vary based on rents, occupancy levels etc. I am just trying to learn how to do the big round estimates on a project like this to know whether I am crazy to pursue it.