Under new ownership, Space Station has expanded steadily, upgrading legacy sites and developing new stores
From London and the South East to Birmingham and West Yorkshire, Space Station offers secure self-storage units available whenever customers need them. Founded with the aim of redefining the self-storage experience through exceptional service, security and convenience, the company has built a reputation for making storage simple and stress free. In 2020, Space Station entered a new chapter when it was acquired by Heitman, a leading global real estate investment management firm. Kevin Prince, CEO elaborates on how that acquisition has shaped the business since.
“Our history is quite unique. The company was started in 1983 by Alistair Caldwell, who had previously earned his living as the McLaren Formula 1 team boss. It is quite a leap from Formula 1 to the dizzy heights of self-storage, but there we are. Alistair’s claim to fame was winning McLaren’s first ever world championship in 1974 with driver Emerson Fittipaldi and again two years later with James Hunt. Having used self-storage facilities in the US, he saw it as a concept worth bringing to the UK when he retired. In his early 40s, he stepped away from Formula 1 and started Space Station, one of the first self-storage businesses in the country. He built up five stores, and his daughter eventually joined him, gradually taking on more of the day-to-day running as Alistair withdrew from the business. When he fully retired, he handed the business to her and went off rallying vintage cars around the world, something he still does at the age of 83. I joined in 2007 to run the business in his daughter’s place after she started a family. Then in 2019, Alistair decided the time had come to sell. I found him a buyer in Heitman, an American real estate investment firm with a strong track record in the sector and self-storage assets across the world. They had an exciting growth plan for Space Station and seemed like exactly the right partner,” he opens.
Sustainable growth
Heitman completed its acquisition of Space Station at the height of the pandemic in 2020, which made for an unusual transition. As this occurred during lockdown, Kevin had to open the stores to show the new owners around. This somewhat surreal experience was a testament to Heitman’s confidence in the future of the sector and in the platform they were buying. From there, Space Station has kept growing steadily, from five stores to seventeen locations across the UK, as well as adding a number of third-party owned stores, managed by Space Station on behalf of investors, with most new stores self-developed by its in-house real estate team and a handful built in partnership with external developers. Everything Space Station builds is delivered to an institutional standard, consistently achieving good or excellent BREEAM ratings. The legacy portfolio acquired in the sale has also been upgraded across the board, making it a strong and well-maintained investment for its new owners.
One of the most recent additions to the portfolio is a new store in Stafford, developed on a prominent historical site, which presented a very different kind of challenge. “The easiest thing to do would have been to knock it down and put up a modern tin shed,” Kevin explains. “But Steve Wilson, my head of real estate, and I both share a love of architecture, and it seemed like a real tragedy to demolish a beautifully engineered brick building in favor of something so generic. Instead, we decided to renovate it, which made the development all the more complicated. The foundations had been built on peat, so every floor had to be reinforced. There was asbestos to remove, and we brought in specialist masonry teams to restore the front. We kept as many of the original artefacts we found in the building as possible, putting them on display so there would always be some reference to the site’s heritage. It is genuinely satisfying to have repurposed an old building that had been boarded up for around eight years and brought it back to life in a way that respects what it once was. Currently, it is probably my favorite site, though it certainly wasn’t during the build because of how problematic it was. Moreover, Stafford is a great town that is undersupplied when it comes to self-storage, so I am very hopeful the new site will be a successful store.”
Investing for the future
As Space Station continues to grow, the business has also been investing heavily in technology to ensure each site runs smoothly. This year the focus is on a comprehensive IT upgrade, including the implementation of a new CRM system, a new property management platform and updated accounting software. While such infrastructure investments often go unnoticed by customers, they make a significant difference to how efficiently the business operates. Artificial intelligence (AI) is also playing an increasingly important role. “Like many other businesses, we use AI primarily for analysis, but also within our sales pipeline. We have an AI sales assistant called Olivia, who responds to email enquiries and has been getting great reviews from customers. That said, I think there is a real and important debate in this industry about where the line should be between automated technology and human customer service. My view is that those systems should support customer service, not replace. it. At Space Station we continue to place people at the center of our strategy, with experienced store teams providing expert advice and support to customers. I know that some operators are moving towards fully unmanned, automated stores, but I have no plans to go down that route at all,” Kevin concludes.
By breathing new life into an old brick building and putting people at the heart of its customer service, Space Station proves that self-storage can be both efficient and full of character.