19 Aug 2019
Don’t blame unbridled American consumerism alone for the proliferation of self storage facilities in the Flathead Valley.
Owners and managers of several such businesses who were recently interviewed offered a variety of explanations for what appears to be strong and continuing regional demand for self storage units.
Customers include people in transition, either downsizing to a smaller home or building a bigger one not yet ready for occupancy. There are seasonal residents who need a place to store lawn furniture in winter. There are people with large houses but small lots. There are adult children whose parents have died and left a house full of memories no one can yet bear to discard.
And there are those who live in new subdivisions with covenants that frown on yards full of hoi polloi eyesores like snowmobiles, RVs and ATVs.
Tony Corporan is general manager of Windmill Storage and Business Park, a sprawling facility off U.S. 2 near Glacier Park International Airport. Windmill boasts 762 storage units and keeps adding on. Corporan said he grew up in a Kalispell family that wasn’t wealthy but owned a lot of recreational gear. As do many others who’ve grown up playing outside in Montana, he said.
“I think we have the same number of toys, we just have less room to put them” he said.
Corporan said the growth of the Flathead Valley has been accompanied by growth at Windmill, Montana. “We continue to build,” he said. “Every time we get close to full, we add units.”
Aaron McPherson owned a moving company in Whitefish and that experience helped him decide to open Central Storage in 2017.
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