INDUSTRY SEES CHANGE

Boardrooms, a wine-storage centre, an on-site sommelier, a lounge — those are just some of the perks an Ottawabased company is promising as it builds a massive selfstorage facility in Toronto. The sprawling site being constructed by Dymon Group of Companies won’t be ready until next year but it highlights a shift in the self-storage industry, where some companies are moving from only offering lockers for people to stash their goods to providing multi-functional spaces that come with a host of add-ons.

“We don’t just rent space,” says Stephen Creighton, Dymon’s senior vicepresident. “We provide a whole variety of services (around) self-storage.” Dymon, which currently has eight facilities, claims it controls 80 per cent of Ottawa’s self-storage market. Creighton notes that the locations, which have about 10,000 lockers between them, are 99 per cent occupied.

The company is now expanding to the Greater Toronto Area, where it plans to build 80 new sites in the next 10 years.