Global real estate investment management firm Heitman has acquired Rent-A-Space Shrewsbury, a UK self-storage asset, through an affiliate of the firm.
Financial details were not disclosed.
The investment marks the first acquisition expanding Space Station, a UK self-storage platform that a Heitman affiliate acquired in late 2020, and is the platform’s first storage asset in the West Midlands region.
The property, with a net rentable area of approximately 58,000 ft2 (5,388 m2), was purpose-built in 2016 and is in the final stages of its lease-up. Upon acquisition, Heitman plans to complete the remaining lease-up of the asset while converting bulk space into additional conventional self-storage units as part of the value proposition of the acquisition.
Caleb Mercer, Heitman managing director of European Real Estate Investment said: 'We are pleased to add the Rent-a-Space Shrewsbury asset to the Space Station portfolio while providing liquidity to the sellers.
'The opportunity to add a sizeable and high quality property to the platform, as well as the opportunity to create value within the asset itself, we found attractive. We look forward to continuing to scale the Space Station platform with further self-storage assets across the UK.
'We have been a long-term investor in self-storage and the adjacent non-traditional sectors. We continue to see significant value opportunities within them and an attractive risk profile, given that their demand drivers are delinked from the broader economy.'
Heitman has been an investor in self-storage since 1996 and plans to continue the expansion of Space Station through further acquisitions of assets and businesses across the country.
Heitman manages more than $5 bn (€4.1 bn) of self-storage assets across the globe. Specific to the UK and Europe, a Heitman-managed investment vehicle owned 51% of the region’s largest self-storage operator, Shurgard, for more than 10 years prior to its IPO in 2018.
