Small suburbs are building self-storage facilities at a “breakneck speed” as housing patterns and retirement trends continue to evolve, according to a new report from RentCafe, an apartment rental search website.
Leading the way in this storage-building boom are smaller communities in Sun Belt mainstays such as Florida and Texas, which are popular destinations for the population in general and retirees in particular. RentCafe’s research finds that certain small communities have increased their self-storage capacity by more than 600% in the past decade. The surge in storage is part of a broader transformation in how Americans live, work and retire. Of the top 10 cities with the fastest growth in self-storage, three are in Florida and two are in Texas.
The No. 1 city for storage growth in the nation is Wesley Chapel, Fla., a suburb of Tampa with nearly 65,000 people. The city has been a major catalyst for the rapid growth surrounding Pasco County, which is the 38th fastest-growing county in the nation.
RentCafe estimates that storage inventory in the city has increased by almost 800% in the past decade, growing from 76,095 square feet in 2014 to 587,656 square feet in 2024. At the same time, the city’s population has increased by 53%. RentCafe writes that the suburb is “a prime example of how infrastructure is racing to catch up with demand.”
Second in storage growth is Wildwood, Fla., a small community of about 16,000 that is located adjacent to The Villages, a sprawling master-planned age-restricted community of 79,000 residents located northwest of Orlando. As an age-restricted community, at least 80% of homes in The Villages must have a resident aged 55 or older.
Wildwood saw its storage capacity spike 443% during the past decade, with the total square feet of inventory rising from 131,750 to 715,519, as the retirement migration effect continues to reshape this region’s housing trends and storage needs.
Third on the list was Sachse, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, where self-storage growth is up 387% in the past decade, followed by Brunswick, Maine, with a storage capacity increase of 348%; and Morehead City, N.C., which has experienced an increase of 347%.
Major metropolitan areas, such as New York City and Houston, have also been building storage facilities at a rapid rate. RentCafe writes that Houston leads the nation in self-storage capacity with 27.5 million square feet, up 24% in the past 10 years. New York is second with about 23.9 million square feet of capacity. The Big Apple has added 7.6 million square feet of storage since 2014.
