08 Apr 2019
With a growing portfolio of 698 self storage assets spread across 34 states and Puerto Rico, and approximately 44 million rentable square feet, National Storage Affiliates (NSA) is on the rise. As the fifth largest owner and operator of self storage facilities among public and private companies in the U.S., NSA is a self-administered, self-managed real estate investment trust, dedicated to the ownership, operation, and acquisition of self storage facilities.
Through ongoing contributions from its Participating Regional Operators ("PROs"), third-party acquisitions, and joint venture partnerships, NSA leverages the benefits of national scale by integrating multiple experienced regional self storage operators with local operational focus and expertise. NSA believes this vision aligns the interests of regional self storage operators with those of public shareholders by allowing the operators to participate alongside shareholders in the financial performance of NSA and their contributed portfolios.
The key is to capitalize on the local market expertise and knowledge of regional self storage operators by maintaining the continuity of their roles as property managers.
This is the very reason John H. Gilliland, president, and founder of Moove In Self Storage, a York, Pennsylvania self storage operator, decided to join NSA as its next and most recent PRO.
In February 2019, NSA entered into definitive agreements with Moove In as its tenth PRO. Moove In currently owns and operates a total of 26 self storage properties under the Moove In Self Storage brand in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York. Upon closing, Moove In contributed six properties to NSA as part of the initial contribution transaction, and Moove In's remaining 20 properties will be added to NSA's captive pipeline.
During Gilliland’s junior year at Cal Poly, Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of 1986 which wreaked havoc on the financial side of farming and the registered Holstein business.
“The cow that once was worth $100,000 was now $20,000 overnight," explains Gilliland. "So in 1987, I traded in my barn clothes for a suit and tie and began selling commercial real estate and investment property for The Hanes Company.”
During his tenure in California, Gilliland specialized in selling multi-family and investment real estate properties. In 1989, he joined Sperry Van Ness, now one of the globally recognized commercial real estate brands. He served under Rand Sperry, one of its founding principles. At the end of 1991, Gilliland returned to his home state to work in the commercial real estate field as an investment real estate broker.
In 2010, during the peak of The Great Recession, he sold his third-party management business to the company’s two key employees, Alyssa Quill and Jay Hoke, what is now Storage Asset Management (SAM). SAM is one of the largest, privately held third-party self storage management companies with 150 properties encompassing over 7 million square feet of self storage in the U.S.
Since the end of the recession, and the better part of the last decade, Gilliland has refocused his energy on ownership, operations, and brokerage.
