Self-storage company with Philadelphia ties merges with North Carolina business

A self-storage company, which got its start in Philadelphia in 2013, has joined forces with another storage business. Together, they will offer more than 10 million square feet of storage space across the country.

Snapbox Self-Storage, which launched in Philadelphia and has 50 locations across the country, including in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, and Florida, merged with Go Store It Self Storage from North Carolina, the companies announced last week.

Going forward, the single company will operate as Go Store It Self Storage and will oversee over 145 storage locations across 23 states.

“We are confident that together, as one team, we will build one of the premier self-storage platforms in the U.S.,” Jake Ramage, Snapbox Self-Storage CEO, said in a statement.

According to a statement from the companies, the merger is designed in part to propel growth in acquisitions and development.

“With a strengthened national presence, the [company] is well-positioned to leverage its collective expertise and pursue growth opportunities more aggressively,” reads the statement.

The recent merger puts the company at a smaller size compared to a leading player in the storage market: In 2023, storage company Extra Space Storage bought Life Storage for $11.6 billion, becoming the largest storage operator in the country with 3,500 locations and some 270 million square feet, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The self-storage industry brings in over $44 billion each year in the United States, and locally, in 2018, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported that the six-county Philadelphia area had 16.5 million square feet of self-storage across 316 locations.

Self-storage locations have been popping up in the Philadelphia region in recent years. Extra Space Storage opened a facility on Washington Avenue, and another in Manayunk, The Inquirer reported in 2019. Another storage building was being built on North American Street at Cecil B. Moore Avenue in 2019, while others had popped up on the edges of Center City, The Inquirer reported. Snapbox Self-Storage already has locations in Pennsauken Township and Northeast Philadelphia.

Self-storage companies allow customers who might not have enough space in their own homes to store extra stuff — or allow customers to off-load things as they go through life transitions including divorce or college. In June 2023, Americans who used self-storage on average spent $165.55 a month, and customers can end up paying more than the value of the items they have stored, in the long term.

The self-storage industry boomed during the pandemic as some people made space for gyms or offices in their homes, and others moved back from college campuses, the Journal reported in 2021. Since then, workers have in part returned to the office, gyms have reopened, and occupancy rates of self-storage units have declined from those highs, bringing some companies to offer discounted rates to customers, the Journal reported last year.

Go Store It Self Storage, the North Carolina company, was founded in 2013 and operates 96 properties with nine more under construction, according to the company.

Go Store It Self Storage was not immediately available for a comment on Tuesday.