24 | Dunedin: Dunedin Self Storage & Theca T T Hugh de Lacy Storage bug runs deep in the family The first storage stage has a 1970sqm footprint, with the two levels giving a total storage area of nearly 4000m2 containing 290 units. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT When quality fabrication matters. JollyCo is a Dunedin, New Zealand based company with over 25 years of fabrication experience. We strive to fabricate quality metalwork products specific to your requirements. www.jollyco.co.nz | info@jollyco.co.nz | 021 2767 456 45 Dowling St, Dunedin, Otago New Zealand, 9012 • Designer metal handrails and balustrades. • Fabrication in a range of materials, among these are stainless steel, aluminium and steel. • One stop for your project, from measure through design then fabrication and nal installation. • CAD design and modelling options for a project that ts. • Welding capabilities include GTAW, GMAW and MMA. He’s a vet by profession but Marcus Wells sold his practice to follow two other family members into the self storage business. “I was sucked into the vortex of the family involvement in self-storage,” Marcus says, as he pushes progress on his 700-unit two-level facility on Mornington Road in the Dunedin suburb of Kenmure. His father, Rob Lilly, came back from an overseas trip in the 1990s confident that the demand for self-storage units there would be reflected in New Zealand – as it has been. Rob built a facility in Tauranga and then continued about building similar ones round the country. Then his daughter, Emily Lilly, set up her own storage facility for themselves in Hamilton. Marcus Wells got the storage bug and today he has the first stage of a three-stage project nearing completion on 1.4ha of land on a prominent site, and it’s likely to get its first customers by Christmas. The project will eventually involve three separate two-level buildings, and Marcus expects to have the whole thing finished in 2027. The first stage has a 1970sqm footprint, with the two levels giving a total storage area of nearly 4000qsm containing 290 units in sizes ranging from 20sqm - big enough to take a motor vehicle - through 12qsm which will accommodate the contents of a three-bedroom home, down to a cupboard-sized 2sqm. It’s expected to be roofed and clad in late November, and when it’s half-full Marcus will launch stage two. This building will have a 750sq2 footprint and 1500sqm of storage, while the final stage will have a 1350qsm footprint, giving a further 2700qsm of storage space. There will be a driveway round the buildings giving ground-level access to the top floors via a ramp at the western end. On average each storage unit will have cost about $12,000 to complete, giving a value of around $8.4 million to the total project, and like Marcus’ father’s and sibling’s facilities it will carry the brand Stash-It. To complete the project Marcus quit the veterinary practice that he’d been running in Dunedin for the previous 20 years, and re-defined himself as a hands-on property investor, swapping the scalpel for a shovel, a hammer and a digger. Under the Stash-It brand the Lillys and Wells promise modern professionally-run clean and dry units at affordable prices close to main roads and throughfares. The North Hamilton facility also offers outdoor storage for the likes of RVs, caravans and boats. While Stash-It Dunedin looks like providing a good return for Marcus, he had another property development that literally went up in smoke. This was a house that Marcus was building at Lake Ohau in Otago, and it was almost finished when it burned down, along with most of the other buildings in the village, in a fast-moving October forest fire three years ago. His brother and sister were working at the property at the time, and the fire swept in so fast there was nothing they could do to save theirs or anyone else’s property. The fire, fanned by 130kph winds, started 1.5km away and took out 48 structures and burned more than 5500ha of farmland. “It just happened so fast, and I’m amazed that nobody actually died in that fire,” Marcus says. “I was sucked into the vortex of the family involvement in self-storage.”
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