Joe DownsCEO & Co-Founder, Belrose Storage Group. Founder, Storage Moguls.

Your game plan for fixing substandard aisles

2 May 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:38

Before buying a facility with narrow aisles, assess whether you can widen them or reconfigure the layout. Factor the cost of improvements into your offer price, then model both scenarios in your pro forma: renovation costs versus a discounted purchase.

Chapters

So what do you do when you acquire a facility with substandard aisles? Well, first of all, if you acquired it, you better know going in. But first, before you acquire, assess whether it's fixable. In some cases, open-air facilities with space to spare, you can reconfigure the layout and gain width. You might lose some spaces in the process, but if those spaces were underperforming anyway, the trade-off can pencil out. So calculate before you buy. Second, price it into your acquisition. If the aisles are 35 feet and your market needs 50, You either have a capital project or a discount facility. So model both scenarios in your pro forma and see which one makes the deal work or kills it.