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Old     (cedarcreek216V)      Join Date: Aug 2011       03-10-2013, 7:42 PM Reply   
My wife and I have tossed around the idea of building a dry boat storage facility and have finally found a site that seems could work financially with where we need to be as well as location. There are a few issues we have been tossing around that I wanted to get opinions on. Keep in mind we don't have an unlimited budget, so we are not putting everything possible into the facility, but I would like to make it so tenants will stay as long as they need storage and not have a reason to leave. So below are a few items up for discussion:

1. Is concrete a must or if we keep a nicely maintained gravel bottom and drive adequate.
2. What is the minimum distance between bays that is acceptable to manuver vehicle and boat into stall?
3. Is 12'x28' big enough or is 30' a must?
4. We are already planning o nrunning power to each unit.
5. Should we provide some type of jacket/equipment hanging system in each unit to avoid people doing their own or will people do their own anyway?
6. Will a 10' clear in height door fit pretty much every bought with tower up?
7. Would a unizex restroom be worth the cost of building and maintaining?
8. I thought a power washer would be nice to allow people to wash their boats there, but not sure it's worth the hassle of maintaining it and blowing out the gravel drive if that's the way we chose to go.

Anything else you can think of that you have seen or have in your unit that could be a cost effective way to keep good tenants would be appreciated.
Old     (bryce2320)      Join Date: May 2012       03-10-2013, 7:53 PM Reply   
I think my boat is 10'-6'' with the tower up, and thats with 15" rims. I just got a storage unit for my boat, and a concrete floor is definitely nice, but Im not sure that it would be a must. Are you going to have a roll up door on each one? If I would have had to just tarp the opening on like a lean-tu style building, that would have probably made me look else where. Not everyone will have a really nice boat that they would want to power wash down, so that also may be a hastle. But then again, it could be a good way to get people to store there. With only 12' wide doors, you will need some distance so a guy can get swung around and started backing in straight. Cutting the corner and cranking it in there doesnt work to good on a narrow door. I would say a good 70' would be plenty???? Sounds like a good way to make some money tho. Good luck to you!!!!
Old     (cedarcreek216V)      Join Date: Aug 2011       03-10-2013, 8:08 PM Reply   
We would either do roll up doors or a double swing door. Either way, not having a fully enclosed unit is not an option. There is a nice place on this side of the lake that has chain link front walls and I know we, as well as many people we know, will not store there because of it.

Thanks for the advice and the info on your boat height, I'll have ot put a tape on ours and check out the height.
Old     (MWG)      Join Date: Mar 2012       03-11-2013, 9:08 AM Reply   
Sounds like a nice venture. A few of things to consider are 1) Insurance 2) Ensure you have a substantial agreement with each leasee to protect yourself 3) Wash down station - would be nice to have but depending on where you are located you may need special permitting & traps due to potential oil/grease run off. If you supply the wash down station you as the owner will be responsible for any environmental impact that may result from careless operators.

Good luck
Old     (22vdrive)      Join Date: Apr 2010       03-11-2013, 12:22 PM Reply   
My current unit is a 15'x30' with a lets say 14' roll up door. Its an amazing unit plenty of room between the units. It only has concrete in the units themselves everything else is gavel. There is no washdown area which is the one thing I wish the facility had. You could make one wash down area and put a coin operated pressure system, or at the very least just a water hose either one would be greatly appreciated by your customers.
Old     (yjwrangler95)      Join Date: Oct 2011       03-11-2013, 12:56 PM Reply   
Concrete is not a must but a bonus, don't worry about racks, people will build their own, take a deposit for damage, that was if the interior walls(assume plywood) is to damaged to repair and reuse, it can be replaced. 12 height door minimum should fit any boat with the tower up, 10 width door is sufficient 12 foot width would be preferred, 10 foot with guide posts is really tight on most units.

I wouldn't do a restroom, to much permitting involved; i would provide water and charge for it accordingly in the monthly fee.
Old     (you_da_man)      Join Date: Sep 2009       03-11-2013, 1:00 PM Reply   
I think that ther storage facility I use is pretty much perfect. Only thing I hope/wish they would do is coded gate access. The facility I have my boat at has 3 different units: 1. 14x30 with 10' door 2. 14x30 with 12' door 3. 14x40 with 14' door. I personally think that no boat storage should be without rolling doors. The barn style doors allow too much play between the doors and easy to get into. Plus with barn style doors little critters (rats, mice, squirrels, cats, large snakes) can easy get into your unit. Concrete should be A MUST inside the unit and for the entire property that trucks/trailers will be driving on!!! The facility I use even went as far as having the concrete floors inside the units to be 1 1/2" taller than the concrete outside the unit. This keeps any wind driven rain/water from entering your unit. I must note that the owners of the facility I use also own their own concrete company so plenty of thought went into their design. Even well maintained gravel or road base will always result in dust, dirt, and mud. Also, the walls separating each unit inside should be walls and not fence or chicken wire. I've seen units where you could be in one unit but see every boat in that building and they were only separated by chain link fencing on the inside. If a burglar gets in one unit they will see the other boats and the speakers and wakeboards, etc, etc, etc. As for locks for each unit, a roll top door has the 1/4 turn latch style lock but my facility went as far as adding a barrel lock with a pin on the side of the roll top door and on the other side even has an additional hasp type latch where you can add a third pad lock if you'd like. Color video cameras are everywhere at my facility. I also thought a nifty idea was that in one corner of the facility there is a long, steep concrete pad (as steep or steeper than most boat ramps) that just goes up into the hillside a bit. It's for just pulling your boat up to allow any water to drain out the drain hole or helps get that little bit of stubborn water out of the ballast tanks/sacs. Finally, power and lighting is a must. To save on $$$ as an owner, I would do 8-12 hour timer on the power. That's plenty of time for onboard battery chargers to do their job. If you didn't have timers, well...renters would probably leave the light on inside or possibly other electrical could be left on.

Here's a couple pics of the facility I use. You can see the lip on the concrete floor as well to keep water/rain out.



Last edited by you_da_man; 03-11-2013 at 1:10 PM.
Old     (cedarcreek216V)      Join Date: Aug 2011       03-11-2013, 7:34 PM Reply   
That is one nice storage facility. I am pretty sure I am not going to be able to convince my wife to do something that nice. I do agree that the concrete is a must and now that I see this, the overhead doors are really nice even though that will increase the cost significantly. Thanks for all the helpful ideas, I'll take them into consideration when designing the facility.
Old     (ferral)      Join Date: Sep 2007       03-11-2013, 8:22 PM Reply   
I know my tower is 10'3" when up. I also left a facility that claimed to have 10' wide doors that were really 9 and change. If I lined up perfectly, the boat went in. But in reality that was just too tight and even a small mistake became a big hassle. It's very hard to straighten out with so little wiggle room.
Old     (you_da_man)      Join Date: Sep 2009       03-11-2013, 8:32 PM Reply   
Quote:
Originally Posted by cedarcreek216V View Post
That is one nice storage facility. I am pretty sure I am not going to be able to convince my wife to do something that nice. I do agree that the concrete is a must and now that I see this, the overhead doors are really nice even though that will increase the cost significantly. Thanks for all the helpful ideas, I'll take them into consideration when designing the facility.
It's also only $95 a month which I think is very reasonable for the features.
Old     (SkySki)      Join Date: Feb 2010       03-11-2013, 8:41 PM Reply   
There are places in havasu (other places probably too) that put the boats/trailers in one large climate controlled warehouse. They have a fenced in section with a coded opening gate. The way it works is you either schedule a time for pickup or just call within 30min of getting there. They bring your stuff out of the warehouse into the secured area. You show up, code in your personal number, gate opens, you go in and get your stuff. 24hr access with guard watch/trailer mover.

There is a few benefits to this. One, as the owner of the place, you can stuff more things into a smaller footprint. For someone storing there stuff, they know there stuff is secure 24/7 and can access it anytime they need. I believe that they have a time limit setup as well. If something sits for an hour after the pickup time, they move it back inside.

I have thought it would be great if they could take some of these shutdown grocery stores into storage places like this.
Old     (illini88)      Join Date: Oct 2007       03-11-2013, 8:50 PM Reply   
Have you considered basically turning it into a condo association and selling the individual bays? You'd own the land and charge a maintenance fee, but others would buy the bays. I've heard of this working up near lake michigan.
Old     (cedarcreek216V)      Join Date: Aug 2011       03-12-2013, 1:20 PM Reply   
Quote:
Originally Posted by illini88 View Post
Have you considered basically turning it into a condo association and selling the individual bays? You'd own the land and charge a maintenance fee, but others would buy the bays. I've heard of this working up near lake michigan.
I did not think about doing this, could be interesting. Seems like a lot of legal issues could arrise if I, or someone who owns a stall, wanted to sell.
Old     (jeff_mn)      Join Date: Jul 2009       03-12-2013, 2:09 PM Reply   
Used to build storage units.. No gravel anywhere. It only makes for a mess for the owner. Skip it.

Consider concrete inside the buildings and blacktop for the driveways/parking as a cost saving meausre. Roll up doors - safer and more reliable.. I like the ideas of having your own storage hangers but keep in mind not everyone will be storying wet gear in there regularly and you might lose a sale if someones boat/truck/whatever doesn't fit in the locker due to the storage. Consider having it removable or figure out a system where you have them in only some lockers as an "option" they can pay for.. Keypad w/ code entry is nice for owners but it's easier for owners to "share" the code. It's "safer" to have key access.. Have a LOT of cameras.. Even if only half of them are hooked up - visual deterrent for theft having a bunch of them. Consider trying to find a "going out of business" sale for someone and buy up their old cameras - don't have all of them live if that is an issue.

Do it right the first time. Most storage pre-fab type options are hard to change/upgrade. Don't skimp on the stuff you want... An out house/porta potty is an option if you think the bathroom is too expensive. You also have to keep the bathrooms clean - so consider that extra cost (janitor service or your time).. 12' doors should be good enough for every wakeboat.. The wider the door the better. As mentioned - a tight door for a wide boat with pole guides might be a "deal breaker" if you have a lot of wide beamed boats. Again, as a cost consideration - perhaps smaller doors (height/width) in a portion and taller/wider in another portion. You'd want to do a quick market analysis to determine who your core customer is going to be and what they will be storing.

Good luck!
Old     (bass10after)      Join Date: Feb 2010       03-12-2013, 8:17 PM Reply   
I would say road base/gravel is just fine, yea its not the cleanest, but initially it will keep your investment down and you could always pave later on once your facility becomes a profitable business for you. Once the base gets crushed into the dirt its not bad at all provided you have plenty of it.. I'd skip the washdown unless you want to go into that business as well. I almost opened a car wash a few years back and went to a few conventions in las vegas and met with quite a few wash owners at their sites as well. Depending on your county building regulations etc. its not as easy as "hey lets add this over here". A wash bay certainly is much easier to add than an automated tunnel system but grease, chemical run-off etc still exists. Some places will really tax the heck out of you for water usage and sewer impact as well. Another thing to consider is adding electrical will probably also necessitate the need for a fire suppression system and a very high amount of gpm required for fire department hook-up , sprinkler systems etc... but then again i'm in ca and tx could be way different. They're certainly a lot better with the gun laws there, so hopefully building departments are better to work with too. good luck
Old     (cedarcreek216V)      Join Date: Aug 2011       03-12-2013, 9:04 PM Reply   
Quote:
Originally Posted by bass10after View Post
I would say road base/gravel is just fine, yea its not the cleanest, but initially it will keep your investment down and you could always pave later on once your facility becomes a profitable business for you. Once the base gets crushed into the dirt its not bad at all provided you have plenty of it.. I'd skip the washdown unless you want to go into that business as well. I almost opened a car wash a few years back and went to a few conventions in las vegas and met with quite a few wash owners at their sites as well. Depending on your county building regulations etc. its not as easy as "hey lets add this over here". A wash bay certainly is much easier to add than an automated tunnel system but grease, chemical run-off etc still exists. Some places will really tax the heck out of you for water usage and sewer impact as well. Another thing to consider is adding electrical will probably also necessitate the need for a fire suppression system and a very high amount of gpm required for fire department hook-up , sprinkler systems etc... but then again i'm in ca and tx could be way different. They're certainly a lot better with the gun laws there, so hopefully building departments are better to work with too. good luck
I think you may have hit it on the head with the initial investment thought. We talked tonight about paving the stalls up front since we would not be able to do that once the units are built and use the gravel for the drives until we get settled in and get the units full then pour the conrete drives at a later date.

I was not really thinking about a true wash area, more of just a hose bib so users can wash down prior to putting up. The concern would be people leaving the water on, bib freezing up and so on.
Old     (bass10after)      Join Date: Feb 2010       03-12-2013, 9:48 PM Reply   
Beings you are going to own the land and environmental impact is a big thing these days i'd talk to someone in your area more about the hose bib idea. Something so innocent can put you on the radar with officials that aren't fun... I've dealt first hand with an inspector who noticed a hose bib didn't have a backflow preventer on it( property was 25+ years old) and then had to add one to every hose bib, have the well tested, shocked, flushed and then retested(all the tests were fine btw).. Thats an easy fix, but someone cleaning out a bilge contaminated with motor oil or fuel leak could lead to something way worse. We're in two different states, and I happen to be dealing with a notoriously tough county on that, but its food for thought. Those things are great for your tennants and help draw people, but also open you up to possible headaches. I'd check out competition around you, go to different sites and see what you like/what you don't like, what you can do better or improve on. Make sure everyone provides you with proof of insurance included w rental agreement prior to occupying the stall etc. You don't want to insure everyones boat or anyone thinking you are either. A good attorney will go a long way.. I'm sure Chattwake will agree
Old     (bass10after)      Join Date: Feb 2010       03-12-2013, 9:51 PM Reply   
I would however do concrete flooring in the stalls, just road base in the drive areas. If the concrete extends past the structure at least a foot you could pave the road base area down the road...I don't think i made that point clear in my initial post.
Old     (jeff_mn)      Join Date: Jul 2009       03-13-2013, 6:12 AM Reply   
I would do a cost comparison of just having blacktop poured compared to road base..

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