Month: August 2025

A Recent Study Shows That Wesley Chapel Is Leading The Entire Nation In Self-Storage Growth, With More On The Way, But… 

Story by Gary Nager & Joel Provenzano 

Of course, it’s one of the most popular (albeit tiresome) running jokes in this community that Wesley Chapel is overrun by chicken places, car washes and yes, self-storage facilities. 

In fact, a RentCafe report published in the Business Observer newspaper shows that over the past 10 years, Wesley Chapel, “has seen its storage capacity skyrocket 672%, jumping from 76,000 square feet to 587,000 square feet. That leap lands it as No. 1 on the top-10 list cities for storage growth in the country between 2014 and 2024.” 

Of course, the report also notes that, “Wesley Chapel is not officially a city but considered an unincorporated census designated [place],” (or CDP) and it’s also not clear whether the RentCafe report uses the three Wesley Chapel zip codes (33543, 33544 & 33545) as its boundaries of “Wesley Chapel” or if the Wesley Chapel CDP boundary, which extends from I-75 west to Wesley Chapel Blvd. and includes the area around the Tampa Premium Outlets (but not some other communities located within the Wesley Chapel zip code maps) — but here’s the bottom line: 

We’ve got a crap-ton of storage facilities in our area — nine within zip codes 33543 and 33544 (but just one, at least so far, in 33545) and two along Wesley Chapel Blvd. with either a Lutz (33559) or Land O’Lakes (34639) zip code — and, sorry to say, more are on the way. 

By our calculations (see chart below), that adds up to 837,300 sq. ft. in 33543, 33544 & 33545, plus an additional 180,300 sq. ft. along Wesley Chapel Blvd. (or 1,017,600 sq. ft total), and at least two more under construction, totalling an additional 212,600 sq. ft., in Wesley Chapel “proper” — one on Curley Rd. just north of S.R. 54 (the second in 33545) and the other on Mansfield Blvd. near Wiregrass Ranch High (in zip code 33543). Without any additional facilities being built, our area will have 1,230,200 sq. ft. of these huge, most would say ugly, buildings “invading” our personal space. 

So, who needs them? 

Apparently, we all do — and they surely seem to be cash cows for those who develop and own them — or they wouldn’t keep building them. 

According to the RentCafe report, “In Wesley Chapel, the growth in storage space — like its growth in housing and retail — is being driven by more people moving to the area.” The report found that, “the central Pasco locality saw its population increase 53% between 2014 and 2023.” 

“It seems, the report’s authors write, that ‘every new household comes [with] a wave of belongings, and self-storage has stepped in to help manage this overflow.’ 

“The report notes one other factor in its findings on Wesley Chapel: The growth in storage space is unlikely to slow down anytime soon. The area currently offers about 4.6 square feet of self-storage per capita, which remains well below the national benchmark, ‘suggesting there’s still plenty of room for further expansion.’ (A RentCafe spokesperson did not respond to a question about what the national benchmark is.)” 

In other words, here in Florida, where there is no such thing as basements in most houses and attics are, in most cases, way too small to accommodate all of our “stuff,” these huge monstrosities are here to stay. 

And no, they aren’t cheap, either. Although we found that most storage facilities list units “starting” as low as $54 per month for a 4’x5’ unit and most list their largest units — usually 10’x20’ — in the low $200s per month, we know first-hand that some of those climate-controlled units fetch more than $400 per month. Ugh. 

Nationwide, the area from South to Central Florida was the hardest hit during the recession of 2008-09, in terms of housing foreclosures. Construction on nearly everything slowed for years, especially here in Wesley Chapel. 

But, the Wesley Chapel area, in particular, has been playing catch up pretty quickly ever since, with both residential and commercial development skyrocketing recently, as well as in the number of storage facilities, which took nearly a decade after the recession’s peak to start coming out of the ground again in our area. 

In a state without truly usable attics and no basements, Florida seems like a prime market for this industry, but there’s more to it than that, especially for a (literally) hot market, as most (but definitely not all) of the storage units are climate-controlled nowadays. 

The RentCafe article cited above says that Wesley Chapel is the fastest-growing self-storage market in the U.S. We confirmed this is likely true, but decided to pull the numbers ourselves (for both current facilities and those under construction), to give a more accurate representation of where our area stands today. In other words, are we actually “under-” or “over-” saturated with self-storage facilities? 

According to the data in our analysis, we calculated the jump in storage space over the last 10 years for Wesley Chapel to be exactly 700% (close to the RentCafe’s report of 672%), from 175,600 total sq. ft. in 2014 to 1,230,200 sq. ft. by the beginning of next year. Here are more numbers, and the answer to that pressing question: 

The average rentable storage area is about 75% of gross floor area, so: 1,230,200 sq. ft. x 0.75 = 922,650 rentable sq. ft., divided by an estimated 110,000 people (in our Wesley Chapel service area) = 8.4 sq. ft. (sf) per capita. 

The National Average for self-storage is 7-8 sf per capita, so with the two newest ones under construction on Mansfield Blvd. and Curley Rd. (see chart, right), Wesley Chapel is just now slightly above the national average, putting us on-trend to keep up with the area’s rapid growth, making us a “balanced market,” that is neither under- nor over-saturated. 

In fact, there’s almost no doubt that at least a couple of additional self-storage locations will almost definitely be needed — especially from Epperson and Watergrass north to Mirada/San Antonio — over the next few years to maintain that balanced dynamic, as more people continue to move to the area. So, as unpopular and maligned as they may seem, storage facilities provide important support for a healthy, thriving community. 

But, Why Are They Needed? 

Local social media comments on posts about self-storage facilities are quick to categorize them as “a blight on the landscape,” “a waste of space” or, at best, “a necessary evil.” But, are they really any of these things? 

The plethora of customers filling these facilities and the nearly perfect Google reviews for all of the ones built during or after 2018 seem to indicate otherwise, as most people who use them seem to be, overall, pretty happy with the experience, with one caveat — price. 

Self-storage pricing changes to match real estate trends — in other words, as housing, office and retail costs go up, so does the cost of self-storage. 

But, Who Are These Companies? 

Although many of the local self-storage facilities have changed hands recently — and several have changed brands multiple times — the largest current provider of storage space to rent in the Wesley Chapel area also is the #1 or #2 (depending upon which Artificial Intelligence search response you trust) largest such company in the U.S. — Extra Space Storage, which operates more than 4,000 storage facilities in 42 states and Washington, D.C. 

The second largest operator is Public Storage, with more than 3,300 locations across the U.S., Canada and Europe. 

Our Google AI search response also said, “It’s worth noting that Extra Space Storage’s recent acquisition of Life Storage significantly increased their store count, pushing them past Public Storage in terms of number of locations.” 

The trend towards more storage facilities isn’t just a local phenomenon, as StorageCafe says that, as of June 2025, there is now more than 2 billion sq. ft. of self-storage space in the U.S., with 62.3 million sq. ft. delivered in 2024 and 56.1 million sq. ft. expected to be added this year. StorageCafe also says that 1 of every three Americans rents a storage space in this country. 

The trend increased during and since the pandemic, as more and more people have operated home-based businesses, many of which require keeping inventory for those business somewhere other than in the peoples’ homes. 

Based on personal experience, the growth of hoarding also seems to have been a factor. 

But, self-storage also is a good business model in today’s world, with low numbers of employees, very little upkeep required and literally every available square foot making money for the business owners. Nationwide, occupancy rates peaked at around 92% during the pandemic, but even with slightly lower occupancy now (around 87%), that’s still higher than most apartment and hotel occupancy rates, with much less maintenance required. 

Some Local Insight 

While taking photos of the outside of one of the storage buildings, we saw a sign that said “Inventory Sale,” so we decided to check it out. 

On the second floor, we met Lisa Gillispie, a business partner with L&J Elite events, a highly rated local business which focuses primarily on weddings. She explained that her business was “needing to downsize” — selling some of the inventory items the company uses regularly to stage its events — everything from candle holders and imitation floral arrangements to fine dishes and silverware, all in storage containers on shelving units from floor to ceiling (photo). 

“Our biggest unit has been 10’x35’ and we need to downsize from our current five units costing $1,200 a month,” Lisa said. “We used to have four smaller units that cost $500 a month, but the price has almost doubled the last few years.” 

Although she lives in Dade City, Lisa said her business partner lives closer to Wesley Chapel and noted, “A lot of our business is in this area.” 

That helped us realize that many of the people who need these units often have a very specific reason for needing them, and for those folks, at least, it’s not really about storing some useless junk. 

We spoke with a long-term full-time employee at one of the local self-storage offices (who asked to not be named in the story) to get some insight into the business locally and the customers they end up serving. 

“There are a lot of small business owners, consultants, local medical supply companies and home stagers,” the employee said, “so storage is a vital resource for them,” adding that, “We do have a lot of unit turnover” — meaning that many self-storage customers are only using the units for short periods of time. “For people moving in from out of town or apartment residents, storage helps. All of the new construction is bringing customers in, people who are waiting for their homes to be finished being built or other sudden life changes.” 

The employee admitted that the cost of owning a self-storage business is pretty low. 

“Yes, I’m the only full-time employee, and we have a couple of part time employees, but we’re good neighbors. We keep a clean property (building) and parking lot, maintain our landscaping, and don’t create much traffic.” 

We also visited Morningstar Storage (behind the Audi Wesley Chapel dealership on S.R. 56), where we discovered that some local storage businesses do even more for the community, offering free or discounted storage units to charities and other non-profits, with ten nonprofits listed on a board in the business’ lobby, with even more that Morningstar offers for seasonal storers, like Toys-for-Tots. 

In other words, while you may hate the way they look and wonder why there have to be so f*@#ing many of them, self-storage facilities are pretty much a necessity in most communities, especially those growing by leaps and bounds, like Wesley Chapel. 

But, are they here to stay? We’ll have to see.