Lock Up Storage – KZN, South Africa Opens a new site in a Shopping Mall

Owner of Lock Up Storage, James Visser, started building his first self storage facility with his father soon after he left school. Keeping everything ‘in-house’, James did the construction, advertising, and management of his first facility until reaching capacity at 7000m2 (75,000 square feet) of rental space.

Completing his second and third facilities in the same way, James added a further 5500m2 (59,000 square feet) of rental space to the Lock Up Storage portfolio.

With 2020 proving to be an uncertain year to take risks due to the pandemic, James started looking for self storage opportunities with one of the most affected real estate sectors, shopping malls. 

Approaching one of the largest malls in one of the largest cities in KZN, James struck luck with Cornubia Mall Umhlanga. The mall management was very interested in having a Lock Up Storage location inside their shopping centre, and gave James the opportunity to develop the basement parking lot with a non-permanent storage solution. 

Bringing in 40-foot shipping containers, the Lock Up Storage team set to work. The containers were refurbished inside and out, front doors and back ends cut off and partitioned in the middle. The team then placed roll-up doors on the front and back, thus turning each 40-foot container into two 15m2 (20 square foot) drive-up storage units. For the unit mix, the Lock Up Storage team then fabricated 3m2 (30 square foot) walk-up units to cater to various customer needs.

Six months since opening day at Cornubia Mall, James is extremely happy with the success of the facility and has phase three expansions planned during April 2021. 

“As shopping malls look to repurpose their tenant mix due to COVID-19, I think self storage could benefit from this opportunity due to the mall's great locations. Lock Up Storage will certainly look to replicate the success we’ve had at Cornubia Mall,” says James.

You can also visit their website: www.lockupstorage.co.za