Should we add an automatic gate to the facility?

[Drew C Grossman]

Earlier this month my partners and I purchased our first self storage facility and we are in the process of turning it around now! We had a question related to entry system (gate ect…) and I figured this forum could provide some experienced insight.

The backstory.

The facility is a 28 unit 6000sqft building in a secondary market that has very healthy demand. The reason I say this is because I know the facilities around us are at full occupancy for the same size unit that makeup our facility. There are 4 facility’s within 3 mile range and they are all much bigger

50,000 sqft+. The product they offer vs ours will be very comparable however they have automatic gate for the entry of their customers and we currently do not.

Question.

Our facility currently just has a chain link swing gate locked with a chain and padlock. We feel the current set up is not the most attractive, efficient and secure to either the owner or future customers. We also feel that an automatic gate of some sorts will not make financial sense for the size of the property. What others ways do you think we can problem solve this? We would love to have transparency to our facility on who is entering and exiting and also give the customer a better experience on how they enter the property which would would allow us to achieve higher rates .

Any input is greatly appreciated! Best of luck to everyone out there in the storage game.

[Bill Snyder]

An automatic gate is one of the first things that will add safety and security to a facility, both real and perceived.

-It provides a barrier to entry against casual trespass

-It gives a sense of security to the customer

-It allows the owner to deny entry to owing accounts 

-It can be keypad operated for only valid tenants or time operated for access hours; either way it minimizes the need for staff involvement

-It allows "tracking" of tenant access to identify trouble patterns.

When I first started this current development, I had an automatic gate before I had any actual tenants.  😉