Construction begins on new storage facility

A city that is growing like Maricopa needs plenty of places to store things. Starting next spring there will be 660 more storage units available, as Omni Self Storage expects to open its facility on the south side of town in May 2022. Construction on the project began this June.

Fritz Beesemyer, a principal in Omni Capital LLC, which is developing the facility, said the project was years in the making.

“We’ve been talking to our lender, Great Western Bank, which has a large presence in Maricopa,” Beesemyer said. “They had been urging us to consider Maricopa for a long time, and that was a catalyst for us to go there. Also, one of our partners has in-laws that live in Maricopa, so he was seeing first-hand the growth that’s taking place there and we wanted to try to capitalize on that.”

The facility, which is now under construction at the intersection of Alan Stephens Parkway & Stonegate Road, covers 95,496 square feet and has a total of 660 storage units – 544 of those are climate controlled and 116 are not. The facility also offers 12 RV storage spaces.

Units will range in size from 5 by 5 feet to 10 by 35 feet. The RV stalls are 12 by 40 feet and are covered.

Nathan Steele, the city’s chief economic development officer, said the facility is emblematic of the overall growth the city has seen over the past few years.

“There is a lot of growth in those neighborhoods (on the city’s southern end), but also a lot of growth everywhere in Maricopa,” Steele said. “I think as more people choose to live in Maricopa, you’ll see more services such as retail stores, grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, and all others that a community needs.”

According to Beesemyer, the facility originally was expected to open this fall, but the company and its developer, Pittsburgh-based Campbell Development, ran into delays dealing with utility issues took longer than originally contemplated.

“We were just dealing with infrastructure issues you would typically expect to run into on a project of this scope,” Beesemyer said. “The delay really hasn’t cost us much, as the city continues to grow.”

Beesemyer pegged development costs for the facility at $8.8 million. He lauded the city staff for its cooperation during the development process.

“As we got into it, your City Manager Rick Horst and his staff were very supportive of our efforts to get off the ground,” he said. “The Planning and Zoning Commission and Rick’s office were really helpful. They realized the need in the area and that the city was considerably underserved from a consumer standpoint. Some cities those folks can throw a little buzz saw into the works, but I suspect with that group down there you’ll have a lot of good development stories to tell going forward.”