9 First-Time Developer Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

 If you’re a first-time developer or self-storage owner, breaking ground on new construction can be intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be. Read on for 9 common mistakes and the easiest ways to avoid making them. 

1. Selecting a poor location. When developers and self-storage owners focus on land cost instead of potential revenue, they tend to go for cheap land that can undermine your success. You’re compromising visibility, accessibility and customer convenience. By prioritizing cost over considerations like traffic patterns, potential new developments, demographics and population migration, you’re compromising the long-term viability of your project.

By bringing an experienced building contractor like BETCO in as early as possible, ideally at the very beginning when you’re selecting property and working with a civil engineer for a site plan, you’ll get the advantage of using our subject matter experts to evaluate your site and design a layout that maximizes rentable square footage. For example, we worked with a commercial developer who had acquired a constrained 2.8-acre site for a self-storage facility. His initial architectural plans called for a traditional single-story layout with standard 10x10 and 10x20 units, which would yield approximately 78,000 rentable square feet. But with BETCO’s strategic intervention, we made these significant improvements:

• A hybrid approach for vertical optimization that included single-story buildings with strategically placed two-story sections that maximized the site’s zoning height allowances.
• A diverse unit mix that included drive-up units, interior climate-controlled spaces and a dedicated section of smaller locker units instead of standard large units.
• A redesigned layout for smart space utilization that incorporated pull-through RV/boat storage along the perimeter to utilize previously “wasted” setback areas.

2. Underestimating site prep costs. New developers tend to think they can just sift together a site plan, but that can come back to bite you without the proper investigation like soil testing, environmental testing and other assessments. If problems like rocky soil, contamination or poor drainage pop up, that’s another $50,000 to $200,000 that you didn’t budget.

At BETCO, our integrated design approach helps you avoid this issue. Once site conditions are known, our engineering team designs your facility to work with the existing conditions rather than against them. For instance, if soil testing reveals rocky substrata, we adjust foundation design and building placement to minimize excavation costs. We also offer complimentary preliminary site assessments for serious prospects to help you avoid costly surprises before you’re committed to a property. This value-added service can save developers from unexpected site prep costs and construction delays.

3. Rushing the permitting process. Part of the site prep process is permitting, but a lot of new developers think it only involves a phone call. More typically, you have to deal with local jurisdictions, whether that be building code officials, city councils or any type of environmental board. And there are plenty of concerns that may come up in your community such as zoning changes and environmental reviews that can lead to approval delays and redesigns that cost time and money. If you need to go in front of a city council, for instance, those schedules can back you up a year in some cases.  

4. Choosing the wrong unit mix. If you’re just looking at the competing self-storage facilities in your area and simply copying what they’ve done with their unit mix, you’re selling yourself short. In self-storage, your competition, even within a 10-mile radius, may be different, so what works across town may not work for your location.

That’s why understanding specific demographics like housing types, income levels and basic tenant needs is so key. At BETCO, we provide market specific unit-mix design in conjunction with your feasibility study. And our Janus International R3: Restore, Rebuild, Replace division specializes in facility remixing for existing owners who need to adapt their unit mix to changing market demands – whether you’re adding locker units for college students, creating climate-controlled sections or converting space for boat and RV storage. We help you maximize revenue per square foot by matching your facility to your community’s evolving storage needs. 

5. Ignoring seasonal demand patterns. This goes hand in hand with choosing the wrong unit mixes. For example, a developer looking to build in a college town might plan for a majority of 5 x 5s and 5 x 10s to cater to college kids. But that’s not really the demographic you want to focus on because those kids are going to move in and move out.

At BETCO, we help developers with local market intelligence integration. Our regional construction managers work exclusively in their markets and understand the nuanced demand patterns beyond obvious demographics. For example, in college towns, we help developers recognize that while students are visible, the stable revenue comes from faculty, staff, local businesses and long-term residents who need consistent storage solutions year-round. Our flexible design philosophy is also extremely beneficial because we design facilities with adaptable unit mixes instead of building for single-use demographics. That way, the buildings we create can accommodate both short-term student needs (smaller units, month-to-month flexibility) and long-term resident storage (larger units, business storage, season items) to maintain consistent occupancy through seasonal fluctuations.

The Janus R3 division is also expert at helping developers transform seasonally challenged facilities into year-round revenue generators. For example, R3 provided a unit conversion strategy for a developer in a mid-sized college town who was experiencing 40% vacancy during summer months and struggling with constant turnover costs. By converting 30% of the small units into larger units to attract local families and small businesses and creating a dedicated section for seasonal items, R3 provided a solution that resulted in:

• Summer vacancy dropping from 40% to 15%
• Average rental duration increasing from 4 months to 14 months
• Annual revenue increasing by 35% despite having fewer total units
• Customer acquisition costs decreasing by 60% due to longer tenant retention

6. Skipping the market analysis process. Another big mistake is relying on outdated or generic feasibility studies that are full of old data and national averages that aren't helpful in providing your current local market conditions. This can lead to over-building and saturated areas. And because you didn’t research upcoming self-storage projects, you may fail to account for a planned competitive development or a three-story across the road that can impact your customer base.

Whether you’re working with BETCO or Janus or both, we help you avoid surprises popping up at the last minute by serving as your trusted advisor. We pair you with experts that provide a strategic methodology that includes market analysis and feasibility studies that are up-to-date, accurate and extensive enough to take everything into account.

7. Treating security as an afterthought. “Let’s build the building and then we’ll worry about security on the backend” is a big mistake that will cost you big. In reality, retrofitting your security systems can cost you 5 times more than building them into the initial construction.

At BETCO, we help you avoid inadequate security planningand costly retrofitting by treating security as a strategic initiative that’s addressed on the front end. In fact, our “smart ready” buildings plan for security and access control from the initial design phase, incorporating pre-wired infrastructure for advanced systems like Nokē’s smartphone-based entry technology that supports individual unit access tracking, remote management capabilities and enhanced security monitoring. And it’s all controlled through the tenant’s smartphone rather than traditional keys or keypads that can be lost, shared or compromised.

8. Underestimating insurance and liability requirements. If you treat security as an afterthought, then you’ll most likely have a poor security design -- and that’s going to lead to higher insurance premiums and even potential lawsuits.

With BETCO, we’ll help you avoid this mistake by designing security compliance into your facility from the ground up. Our SMARTREADY® buildings meet or exceed insurance industry standards for self-storage security, incorporating proper lighting placement, strategic camera positioning, secure perimeter design and access control infrastructure that insurance carriers recognize and reward with lower premiums.

9. Prioritizing manned sites without the right staffing. Some developers assume that staffing your facility at the bare minimum will work for the long term, so they hire part-time help that’s untrained. But that can lead to operational inefficiencies from customer service issues, security problems and turnover. If you’re going to put employees on site, it’s important to budget for proper training and management systems.

At BETCO, we set you up for success with the tools and the products to help you avoid mistakes that create hiring challenges, training costs, payroll expenses and the security risks that come with undertrained personnel. For example, our smart ready buildings support fully automated operations with the Nokē Smart Entry system from Janus and integrated access control technology, so you can operate successful unmanned facilities that provide superior customer experience while eliminating staffing headaches entirely. And with the ability to remotely monitor all facility activity, you get better security than most manned facilities while reducing your operational overhead.

How to Get the Advantage

When your building contractor and door and access control specialist work as one team from day one, you avoid costly mistakes, delays and compatibility issues that plague many construction projects using separate vendors. BETCO and Janus work as a unified team to deliver turnkey self-storage facilities from the building to final access control installation – resulting in faster completion times, better functionality and lower overall costs. BETCO serves as your engineering and construction expert for building design and structural systems, while Janus International provides specialized project management and interior buildout expertise including doors, hallway systems and Nokē  access control technology.

About Our Expert