With self storage now a £1 billion sector in the UK and attracting increasing competition, canny operators are investing in mezzanines to maximise their capacity.
The UK industry made more than £1 billion in 2023-24 for the first time (annual turnover was £1.08 billion) and has continued to increase in size, with total floorspace now at 60 million sq. ft, triple the amount available in 2005.
It’s a similar story in Europe where the self-storage market has 9,575 sites in operation, totalling 175 million sq. ft in gross area. The leading four markets (UK, France, Germany and Spain) account for 68% of Europe’s stores and capital deployment has continued to grow year on year since 2020, with a diverse range of investor groups seeking opportunities.
Benefits of mezzanines for self-storage
With 44% of operators planning more investment in new sites, according to a report from property agents Cushman & Wakefield, installing mezzanines is the chance to gain three or four times the amount of space.
Self-storage premises have great headroom – our client Space Station has installed four floors of mezzanine at its Doncaster site, increasing their square footage fourfold.
With self-storage facilities siting their larger units for bulkier goods at floor level, mezzanines are perfect to carry the smaller units with lighter contents rising up the building.
Hi-Level Mezzanines can also adapt to your customer profile – an area with more residential customers lends itself to smaller units, while an area with more B2B customers is likely to have a more balanced split between bigger units at the bottom and lighter contents at the top.
Our qualified structural engineers will calculate the correct loading for every client.
Case study – Space Station
Hi-Level Mezzanines has delivered a four-tier solution to optimise Space Station’s new facility.
We became part of the project in the early stages as mezzanine floors were paramount to the design with a mix of solutions for Space Station’s customers: the ground floor is used for bulk storage units which can range from 500 to 3000 sq. ft. These units are popular with businesses needing to access their units on a regular basis. The four tiers of mezzanine floor hold a mix of unit sizes ranging from 15 sq. ft. to 500 sq. ft. with varying proportions of each per floor.
This mix of unit sizes, along with its rentable office space, means Space Station caters for customers from individuals requiring a small amount of short-term storage to a growing business which can seamlessly operate from Space Station using both office and storage space.
Space Station was so pleased with our work that our Sales Director Chris Baxter was invited to Doncaster for the opening ceremony. He said: “It was a joy to be invited to the launch because the client was so happy with the work Hi-Level had done, and to travel to Yorkshire to see the success of the project. Then more than that, to be name checked within the keynote speech by Stephen Wilson, Head of Real Estate! To see the project ready to use as the customer sees it, and how the mezzanine fits with their overall strategy, is great.”
Why self storage is booming
- Self storage is a growth area because it offers such flexibility. Space Station has clients using front-office spaces at its sites for in-person meetings and a storage unit as their back office for stock.
- Storage can be half the price of office rent, so instead of a room full of filing cabinets in expensive premises firms use self-storage facilities, freeing up space in their offices for more productive use.
- Storage units can house e-commerce inventory or a bike-repair business. The possibilities are huge.
- With a housing and cost-of-living crisis, people who cannot afford to buy bigger homes use self storage to keep safe the belongings they do not have room for.
Why trust Hi-Level Mezzanines with your self-storage facility
We are members of the Self Storage Association (SSA) UK, the principal trade association representing both self-storage operators and industry suppliers’ interests. It has over 650 members representing more than 1,600 stores.
If you’ll be at the SSA conference this month we look forward to meeting you. We support both operators and suppliers to make a more rounded experience for the customer. Over the months to come we will also be contributing articles full of advice and information for SSA members
Bespoke service
At Hi-Level Mezzanines we are ready to design and install exactly the right mezzanine for your business. We can tailor loadings and plan out unit size, floor plan and column positions with you. We offer colours to match your branding – staircases in green and yellow for Space Station, for example.
Three advantages of working with our highly experienced engineers:
- Hi-Level Mezzanines’ bespoke approach can give you a column grid which works perfectly with the size of your units
- We can provide a grid with no columns in corridor areas for fluid circulation, hiding them instead within the storage units
- And we can change the column grid for areas such as Goods Received and Reception to keep them free of columns too.
