Chicago-based Harrison Street Real Estate Capital L.L.C. has acquired a portfolio of 19 self-storage facilities across six states. The buyer was described only as \u201ca national lending institution,\u201d and the purchase price was not disclosed. The deal, according to Harrison Street, positions the company in the top 15 owners of self-storage assets nationally, by giving it a total of more than 4.6 million square in 65 properties across 17 states and valued at well over $600 million. Christopher Merrill, Harrison Street co-founder & managing director, told CPN that although the self-storage business is competitive, and no asset class is truly recession-proof, \u201cWe like storage\u2026. It\u2019s not a high-cost monthly item for the consumer.\u201d In fact, he added, depending on the location, demand for self-storage can rise in bad times, because of homeowners and businesses downsizing to smaller premises. Harrison Street\u2019s overall strategy is to focus on recession-resistant asset classes such as senior housing, medical office and healthcare properties, marinas, self-storage facilities and student housing. One result of that, Merrill explained, is that the values of individual assets tend to be small. Overall, he said, Harrison Street\u2019s properties, across the company\u2019s entire portfolio, average between $4 million and $5 million, with the self-storage properties at the lower end of that. The properties in this latest acquisition are in Illinois, Ohio, Florida, Rhode Island, New York and Nevada and total more than 1.4 million square feet of space across some 11,600 units. Merrill told CPN that Harrison Street found the properties attractive in terms of both quality (all have been built since 2000) and location. One, for example, is adjacent to Chicago\u2019s McCormick Place, one of the world\u2019s largest convention and exposition centers. The 19 new additions will be rebranded and managed by two of Harrison Street\u2019s exclusive property-management companies, United Storage (United Stor-All) and Morningstar Properties (Morningstar Mini-Storage). The acquisition was made on behalf of Harrison Street Real Estate Partners II L.P., a recently-established $430 million closed-end opportunity fund with gross buying power of approximately $2 billion. With the acquisition, the fund will have acquired or commenced development on over $700 million of real estate consisting of more than 60 properties in 2008. Harrison Street was founded by Chicago\u2019s Galvin family, the founders of Motorola. In addition to Merrill, who was formerly a managing director and partner at Heitman L.L.C., the company\u2019s management and investment committee consists of former Motorola chairman & CEO Christopher Galvin and Michael Galvin, a former partner in the law firm of Winston & Strawn, who also served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce from 1989 to 1992.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chicago-based Harrison Street Real Estate Capital L.L.C. has acquired a portfolio of 19 self-storage facilities across six states. The buyer was described only as \u201ca national lending institution,\u201d and the purchase price was not disclosed. The deal, according to Harrison Street, positions the company in the top 15 owners of self-storage assets nationally, by giving…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37301],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1003916330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n