Self Storage in Dundee

Why does Dundee need self storage?

Self storage in Dundee has become big business for several reasons. Firstly, there is the size of the place: Dundee is the fourth largest city in Scotland with 159,000 residents, meaning there are lots of potential customers.

These people are also packed very closely together: it is the second-most densely populated area in Scotland after Glasgow (and fifth-most in the whole UK), because the city is crammed onto a small area of flat land between the Firth of Tay and the Sidlaw Hills. This general lack of room creates a need for extra storage space, hence the success of self storage.

The housing architecture exacerbates the lack of storage space by consisting mostly of four -storey Victorian tenement flats and 1960s tower blocks. As neither was designed with the modern hoarder in mind, most of Dundee’s housing stock doesn’t have the type of storage space that modern urbanites need for all their clothing and gadgets.

What there is a lot of in the city are old warehouses, relics of its former associations with the jute, whaling and shipbuilding industries. Several of the facilities that provide self storage in Dundee are conversions, as this is cheaper than buying and constructing on new land.

Student Self Storage in Dundee

Dundee also contains two universities, the University of Dundee and the University of Abertay Dundee, giving it a student population of nearly 24,000 during term time. Many of these are from overseas – especially Ireland, Eastern Europe and Asia – meaning it is expensive for them to send their belongings home for the holidays. Self storage is an obvious solution to this problem, and the marketing opportunity has not been lost on Dundee’s operators: all four of its self storage companies specifically target students on their websites.

Who provides self storage in Dundee?

The only national brand to have a self storage facility in Dundee is Alligator Self Storage. This is actually run by Big Yellow, after they won the contract to manage Alligator Self Storage stores on behalf of HSBC Specialist Investments. HSBC originally bought Armadillo from its founder, the Scottish self storage mogul Alister Jack – who also founded Aardvark Self Storage, and currently owns Alligator Self Storage and Edinburgh Self Storage – for £40 million in 2007.

The biggest local brand is Keepsafe Storage Centres – who with two locations in Dundee and one in Perth – refer to themselves as ‘Tayside’s Premier Self Storage Company’. One of their branches was the first purpose built drive-up self storage centre to be constructed in Scotland.

Another company, Kangaroo Self Storage, gives an idea of the cost of self storage in Dundee. Their website advertises that renting a 75 sq ft self storage unit for 12 weeks costs £192, meaning they charge about £15.25 a sq ft per year. Therefore, self storage in Dundee costs about ten pounds a year less than it does in London. This company also boasts of having the NHS, local police, Coca-Cola and M & S among their customers.

Storage 4U is the other firm that provides self storage in Dundee. It was established in 2002 and now has 30,000 sq ft of space, divided into over 120 individual self storage units.