Wasatch Storage Expands Austin Footprint
JLL Capital Markets arranged the company's fourth self storage acquisition in the metro.
Park 79 Self Storage
Wasatch Storage Partners has acquired Park 79 Self Storage, a 780-unit facility in the Austin suburb of Hutto, Texas. JLL Capital Markets negotiated the transaction on behalf of the buyer. The new owner will retain CubeSmart as property manager. The newly acquired asset brings Wasatch Storage Partners’ portfolio to a total of four facilities in the metro.
Completed in 2019, Park 79 Self Storage spans 98,260 rentable square feet across two buildings located at 244 Benelli Drive. The self storage facility includes climate-controlled units as well as RV and boat parking spaces. Storage spaces range between 25 and 200 square feet, and property features include drive-up access to ground-floor units and non-stop digital surveillance.
The property is immediately south of East Palm Valley Boulevard and across the street from Tradesmens Industrial Park. Downtown Austin is roughly 26 miles south of the property, while Georgetown is 12 miles north.
The JLL team that arranged the transaction included Managing Directors Brian Somoza and Steve Mellon. Wasatch Storage Partners worked with the same JLL team in Austin this June, when the company acquired Springwood Self Storage, a 422-unit facility close to Apple’s upcoming $1 billion campus at the corner of Dallas Drive and West Parmer Lane.
Strong self storage fundamentals
According to Yardi Matrix data, Park 79 Self Storage is one of the nine facilities located within a 3-mile radius, offering an average 10.6 net rentable square feet per capita—slightly above the metro’s penetration rate of 10 square feet per capita.
Due to strong demand in the market and a tight construction pipeline—accounting for 5.9 percent of existing inventory as of August—Austin continued to register one of the highest rent growths across all major markets year-over-year. Street rates increased by 12 percent for 10×10 non-climate-controlled units and by 15 percent for climate-controlled units of similar size, significantly above the national averages, according to a recent Yardi Matrix report.
