Ladera Ranch-based SmartStop Asset Management LLC is looking raise more than $1 billion to fund another batch of self-storage facility acquisitions across the country as it takes the wraps off of a new development in its hometown.
The company filed a registration statement late last month for Strategic Storage Trust IV Inc., a nontraded real estate investment trust that will buy self-storage facilities and “other storage-related investments such as storage facilities for automobiles, recreation vehicles, and boats,” the company said.
The REIT would be the fourth of its kind for SmartStop and its chief executive, H. Michael Schwartz, over the past eight years.
Its first offering in that period, SmartStop Self Storage, kicked off in 2008 and spent $614 million on 111 properties in 17 states and Canada.
Last year that REIT was bought by Salt Lake City-based Extra Space Storage Inc. in a deal valued at $1.4 billion.
Two other REITs remain under SmartStop’s control.
Its Strategic Storage Growth Trust, launched in 2013, has raised more than $30 million and has a portfolio topping 1 million square feet.
Strategic Storage Trust II, launched in 2014, has raised more than $300 million from investors and bought about 2.5 million square feet of property.
The self-storage industry remains a fragmented one, despite its own efforts to consolidate properties through nontraded REITs, according to SmartStop’s latest registration statement.
The top 10 self-storage companies own about 15% of all such facilities, according to the 2016 Self Storage Almanac. The market share of the top 100 self-storage companies is approximately 19%, the registration statement said.
The new offering comes as the company this month opened a $35 million development in Ladera Ranch that combines a storage facility, offices, and most prominently, a sports center, the latter of which is open to the public.
It recently held the grand opening of the Ladera Sports Center, a 63,000-square-foot gymnasium with eight full-size basketball and volleyball courts and other amenities that it helped to develop.
The project broke ground about a year ago. Irvine-based RD Olson was the center’s general contractor, and Robert Coffee Architects was the designer.
The owners of the $23 million sports center are seeking new investors, according to its website.
Aliso Project
Belmont Village LP, a Houston-based developer, owner and operator of senior housing, has bought land in Aliso Viejo for what appears to be its first local project.
The company, which builds projects under the name Belmont Village Senior Living, recently closed on land that CT Realty Investors bought from the U.S. Postal Service and that it’s turning into a mixed-use property emphasizing medical uses.
Newport Beach-based CT Realty bought the 25.6-acre site on Liberty Road in March for a reported $33.6 million, or $1.3 million an acre. The site is close to Aliso Viejo Town Center and is one of the last big parcels of developable commercial land in Aliso Viejo.
It has since sold individual parcels to other medical developers that CT Realty said will ultimately build nearly 500,000 square feet of space for a variety of medical uses.
An affiliate of Belmont Village paid about $10 million for a 6.9-acre parcel there, according to CoStar Group Inc. records. It plans a 155-unit, 145,000-square-foot assisted-living facility, according to documents filed with the city.
Belmont Village has facilities in nearly a dozen Southern California locations. The Aliso Viejo project would be its first in Orange County, according to its website.
An affiliate of Steadfast Cos. in Irvine initially was to run the assisted-living facility, according to city filings, but is no longer part of the deal.
Steadfast also is involved in a 211-unit senior housing project under development a few miles away in Laguna Niguel called Crestavilla.
Other developers that have bought land at the former USPS site in Aliso Viejo include Roseville-based USA Properties Fund Inc., which paid about $6 million for a 4-acre parcel that will hold a 200-unit senior housing facility, according to property records.
USA Properties develops senior living and affordable housing projects and already is working on a similar project just down the street from the USPS site.
