Storage Pro’s first foray into Nevada is the conversion of an older 102,781-square-foot building at the corner of Vassar Street and Terminal Way that used to house a Wells Fargo 
call center until it closed in 2018.
Prior to that, the facility built in 1969 was used by the bank to take in cash back in the days before casinos went to the now ubiquitous cashless ticket-in-ticket-out slot and poker machines. Storage Pro’s Northern Nevada development play is just one of many new storage facilities under construction in Northern Nevada, which already boasts more than two times the national average of storage supply per capita, said Tom de Jong, executive vice president with the Reno office of Colliers and head of De Jong Self Storage Team.
New storage projects planned or underway in northwest Reno, North Valleys, south Reno and other communities will add more than 160,000 square feet of rentable space to a market that already offers 10.6 million square feet of storage space, de Jong added.
“Across the country there’s about 7 square feet per capita,” he said. “It’s lower in many 
markets, and there are some with 8 to 10 square feet, but there are few markets with 15 or more. Reno has had a lot of self-storage built, but they keep building it and it keeps filling. As long as they are getting $1.50 or more per square foot for rent, it makes economic sense.”
Despite the large amount of storage space already constructed in the Northern Nevada market, rents and occupancy remain stable, de Jong noted, which is primarily due to the large influx of new residents to the Truckee Meadows over the past decade. Washoe County’s estimated population of more than 507,000 residents in 2025 represents a nearly 15 percent increase from 2015’s headcount of just under 442,000 people.
It’s that inundation of new residents that make storage plays in Reno-Sparks viable investment opportunities, said Jim Field, partner with Storage Pro.
“Reno has had a dynamic growth record over the last decade, and we have recognized the desire for people to exit parts of California,” Field told NNBW. “The business climate and opportunities in Reno are exceptional. We were able to purchase the property at a reasonable price, and we like the location and growth model of Reno. It was an easy decision to make our first acquisition.”
Repurposing the facility wasn’t without significant challenges. It was packed full of outdated office equipment that couldn’t be repurposed, and the building’s use as office space proved functionally obsolete as well. Interior demolition, which also included removal of older backup diesel generators, HVAC and other mechanical systems, took close to four months, Field noted.
“It was clear to us when we purchased it that there was no market for this type of product in Reno,” he said. “It didn’t present well. It was very dark inside with large rooms that didn’t have any appeal to today’s office users.
“The Reno office market also would have a very difficult time absorbing a 100,000-square-foot single-use building. There just aren’t many office tenants of that size in Reno. Now that the building has been cleaned out it’s perfect for a conversion to self storage.”
The Storage Pro facility features all new fire suppression, electrical and HVAC systems. The interior temperature will be regulated to safeguard stored goods against Northern Nevada’s blistering summers and frigid winters. There will be approximately 600 units ranging in size from 5 x 5 to 10 x 30. The facility will also have new storage buildings around the perimeter with 12-foot rollup garage doors for renters who require drive-up spaces. The building is expected to open in the fourth quarter of this year, Field said.
Investors and self-storage developers prefer to put their capital into storage facilities for a host of reasons, Collier’s de Jong noted. There’s little financial lift once the facility is built, and they take very little manpower to maintain.
“You can run a 120,000-square-foot facility with two people,” he said. “It’s a relatively low-cost operation. Re-tenanting costs are getting out a broom and sweeping the unit clean, and if a tenant doesn’t pay their rent there’s a process for auctioning off their items.”
Storage lockers are used for multiple purposes. Some people – especially apartment renters – use self-storage for seasonal recreational equipment and holiday decor, as well as general overflow. Small businesses historically rent storage space to hold equipment and materials. RV and boat storage is another growing sector of the storage business among renters, de Jong added.
Reno’s burgeoning industrial sector has lifted and diversified the regional economy, but it’s also squeezed out smaller businesses who can’t afford the rents on flex warehouse spaces and instead turn to storage, de Jong said.
“In many cases, they are better off using storage than renting a warehouse,” he said.
Burning Man also contributes to a large number of self-storage renters in Northern Nevada, de Jong said. It’s cheaper for burners to store their playa equipment and supplies in Reno rather than taking it to their home markets, especially those who live in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
“The overwhelming majority of burners come through Reno on their way to the Black Rock desert, and it just makes sense to store here for the year rather than taking it back to where they came from,” de Jong said. “Rents in Reno are usually in the $1.50 range, and it could be $3 to $4 in the Bay Area, if you can even find a space.
“Every owner I have spoken to has burners who come once a year, they come back a week later, and then they see them another year down the road. That’s a unique factor to the Reno market.”
Large parcels of developable land are at a premium across the Truckee Meadows and in outlying communities, so development plays such as Storage Pro’s conversion of a functionally obsolete space are likely to be more common, de Jong said.
“Reno historically had plenty of land, so investors would buy three to five acres and build a traditional garage-door type facility where you can drive up to the majority of units. In markets such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle or Portland, they are building three-story facilities because the cost of land is so high. That is the evolution of next-generation storage facilities in the Reno market.”
