Car Storage
 

I have two classic cars that are taking my the entire garage at my home. I am looking at options to rent a garage or small warehouse somewhere to free up some room. I am open to sharing with others who may have space or even renting one together. I am not aware of any commercial storage facilities in the northern VA area but would be interested in suggestions. Does anyone have any recommendations or ideas?

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A group of friends and I rented a commercial space in Rockville, behind the gas-field, for a little over a year in '17 and '18. It wasn't big, so we could only get about 4 cars in it, 5 if we got creative. It started at $1500/mo, but quickly escalated to $3500 or $4500 over the year. We couldn't justify it and ended the lease at that time.

Things marketed as "Car storage" are expensive, so I'd recommend looking at commercial spaces for rent. The general neighborhood for ours was OK, but we never left ANYTHING outside, and made sure we kept a low profile so limited people would know the value of what was inside.

I'd look in Frederick County, MD if I were to do it again, but I'm a lot closer to Frederick than you.

The other approach is a home lift. After we got rid of our commercial space, my friend outfitted his home garage with a couple of cantilever lifts from Potomac Garage. All the prep (electrical, reroute door, jackshaft opener) and the lifts themselves aren't cheap, but the back-of-the-napkin math showed that it paid off for him after 1 year.

Maybe look around private airfields for hangars. A good friend rents a hangar with several other friends for all of their toys. Ends up being a good deal and provides secure storage and space.

Why did the rent escalate so high? Was that utilities or building costs or just rent increases?

I don't want to fall into the same trap!

Thanks

^^^You can find some reasonable commercial space south of BWI, Jessup/Columbia. With all of the current world issues this may be the right time to look for something reasonable.

Pure rent costs. Utilities were dirt cheap. I believe the lease agreement was written with a clause "after X months, the rent may increase" or similar. That's super open-ended, and we got hosed. My guess is the property company saw the demand go up and decided to drive us out because they could make more.

I can't remember the site, but there is a website that searches commercial properties for rent, and I believe that's how we found ours. None of us had ever rented commercial space like that, so the newbies learned a lesson.

I dare say I'd be interested, depending on the rent and location.

There are commercial classic car storage places around. I looked at a business plan for one planned for Rockville a few months ago. I recall the business plan mentioning two large "competing" locations. I believe one was in NOVA (well outside the beltway though) and another near Columbia, MD. They are not cheap. There are hand full of smaller operations around.

This was announced last month, but anymore who knows:

https://www.theburn.com/2020/03/14/g...ts-on-loudoun/

Intersport is offering car storage in the lower level of their new facility in Ashburn