A Quick Inventory of Up-and-Coming Storage Centers North of Washington Ave.

Construction at Shepherd and Allen st.

Now rising at 1202 Shepherd Dr., atop the former sites of the Sarco Enterprise used car lot and its various adjacent industrial-retail odds and ends: a 4-story self-storage building from Provident Realty. The Dallas-based developer (which is also behind the redo of the former Texaco building Downtown and its potential future companion highrise) bought the land in October of last year from an entity called Shepnett Holdings, which also owns the land across Nett St. at 1112 Shepherd  — on that site, the former graffiti-slathered home of relocated art and framing shop Alva Graphics is being converted into the burger restaurant initially planned for the ex-Ruggles Grill lot on Westheimer.

The Provident storage facility will be conveniently located about 4 minutes by car from the Uncle Bob’s Life Storage building that just opened along Washington Ave across from the former Wabash Feed & Garden store. A storage-atuned reader in the neighborhood sends a few more angles on the new building’s in-progress skeleton — the building extends from Nett St. toward the southern of Allen St.’s 2 parallel roadways, laid along either side of the Southern Pacific railroad line:

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Construction at Shepherd and Allen st.

Construction at Shepherd and Allen st.

The reader also sends this parting shot, taken half a mile or so away at the corner of Patterson St. with I-10:

I-10 at Patterson St.

Photos: Swamplot inbox

Boxes of Brunner

7 Comment

  • Wonder how long it will take MakeSpace and it imitators to render self-storage obsolete?

  • I wish we could make a law where all of these monstrosities have to be built underground.

  • WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE THAT KEEP RENTING APARTMENTS JUST FOR THEIR EXTRA JUNK THAT THEY OBVIOUSLY DONT NEED?? CARGO CULTISTS, GET RID OF YOUR JUNK.

  • I love Heights Walmart: There is a huge trend in “smaller living”. But the trend of “having less stuff” hasn’t really caught on. So you have 1000’s of people moving into 500 sf urban apartments. However, they still have “stuff”. So along with the trend of downsized homes will be the trend of storage to market to these people
    .
    (if there wasn’t a demand, the people building these wouldn’t be buying $ lots to build the storage. And “getoffmylawn”, luckily you don’t get to decide how someone builds their own structure on their own land. If you have a better market use for the property, buy the land, build your idea, and make some money)

  • Structural steel and concrete decking should be the requirement for all apartment construction. People’s junque lives in better constructed buildings than that of its owners.

  • Only in America do we need some much f*cking storage….

  • @ limestone: Due to structural loads and fire loads, it makes a lot of sense for multi-level self storage facilities to be built a little more sturdy and a little less flammable. For finished and occupied living spaces, wood framing with firewalls and fire suppression systems are adequate to manage ordinary risks. If all new construction has got to be done to a new superadequate spec then the cost of all housing will go up; and I suppose that that’d be just fine if you already own housing, but it’d be kind of crappy for those that don’t.