Top 10 Biggest Self Storage Owners In The U.S. (By Square Feet… But With A Twist)
Of the over 2 billion square feet of self storage in the U.S., 14.3% was delivered in the last five years. The industry’s considerable recent growth proves it is a great solution not only for clients but also for investors — including during challenging times. Continuing the strong trend, roughly 61.1M square feet of new US self storage space is scheduled to be completed this year, a 6.6% increase over 2023’s deliveries.
Many large investors have discovered what a gold mine self storage has become. To see how much storage space they actually offer now, we decided to get a little…. well, weird! Here are the top 10 players by total square footage of storage, and what this would look like if you got silly with the math — this is courtesy of Steven Wooding’s Weird Units Converter, where you can make all sorts of measurements using rather unusual units.
#10: The William Warren Group: 19.8M square feet in about 300 facilities
Headquartered in Santa Monica, CA, The William Warren Group, Inc. (WWG) is a private self storage company. Its focus is on the development, acquisition and management of self storage. Established in 1994, WWG operates under the StorQuest Self Storage brand. The company owns about 19.8M square feet of self storage spread across 300 facilities. This is an area you could cover with about 341 million Post-it notes, but this might take you and your office buddies at least a couple of days to do it!
Empty Colorful Post-it Notes on a Wall
#9: StorageMart — 20M square feet in more than 260 locations
StorageMart is one of the players on this list that has branched out to other countries as well, specifically Canada and the UK. The company made waves in 2021 when it bought Manhattan Mini Storage — a huge $3 billion purchase — and its total inventory has now risen to over 20 million square feet. You could cover that entire area in 251 million bars of chocolate, enough to give treats to all the nation’s kids… and their moms!
A Variety of Chocolate Bars
#8: Merit Hill Capital — 25M square feet in 388 facilities
With about 388 self storage facilities across 37 states, Merit Hill Capital doesn’t shy away from rapid expansion — in 2020 it was the single largest buyer of self storage properties in the U.S. Though based in Brooklyn, most of its square footage is focused around California, Texas and Florida. The company’s total inventory of more than 25 million square feet could be covered by about 462 million donuts — no, we are not going to mention law enforcement officers at this point.
Assorted Donuts in a Box
#7: Prime Group Holdings — 28M square feet in over 400 locations
A private equity company, Prime Group Holdings is a vertically integrated real estate and property management company. Their specialties include self storage and real estate asset classes. The company is headquartered in Saratoga Springs, NY, and it has offices in New Jersey, Colorado and Florida. In 2024, Prime Group tapped into the Canadian self storage market and added three self storage portfolios made up of 30 facilities across the U.S. Overall, the company operates over 400 facilities encompassing over 28M square feet of self storage. You could cover this surface with 9.1 billion pennies, if you can find a large enough bank vault and you know a bank teller nice enough to count it out for you!
Closeup of pennies
#6: SROA Capital – 30M+ square feet in over 650 facilities
Another company that focused on self storage too, has a portfolio across the Midwest, Northwest and the South. It’s operating under its flagship brand Storage Rentals of America. Ever since it was founded in 2013, SROA has consistently grown its portfolio as a response to the growing need for self storage. In 2024, the company acquired 280 new properties in Illinois, Louisiana, Alabama, Wisconsin, Texas and other states. The company’s inventory is made up of over 650 facilities that translate to 30M+ square feet of self storage space. That amount of storage space is more than a 521 football fields — over his career, Tom Brady would have played them all a few times!
Football Stadium
#5: CubeSmart — 58.3M square feet in over 890 stores
The sixth-place spot is taken by CubeSmart, a self storage company that operates and/or owns 890 stores. The company owns a large number of facilities in New York City, Chicago and in large cities in California, Florida and the Sun Belt. Its total inventory measures 58.3 million rentable square feet, and if that number makes you want to lie down for a minute, well, it’s roughly equivalent to over one million king-sized beds!
Beds with Memory Foam Mattresses
#4: National Storage Affiliates — 70M square feet in over 1,000 properties
With more than 500K self storage units across 42 states, plus Puerto Rico, National Storage Affiliates boasts a huge total inventory. And it is clearly on a roll for getting more, as two hundred of its approximately 1,100 self storage properties were acquired just recently in 2021, bringing its total rentable square footage to a whopping 70 million square feet — that’s the equivalent of almost 620 million iPhone screens!
Smartphones with White Blank Screens
#3: U-Haul — 89.6M square feet in over 1,800 facilities
Probably the best-known name on our list is this California-based moving company. Its do-it-yourself approach to moving home also translates wonderfully to storage — its fleet of hundreds of thousands of trucks and trailers is augmented by over 1,800 self storage facilities in both the U.S. and Canada. In 2024, the company acquired a four-property self storage portfolio in Minnesota and Kansas, adding 3,345 units to the company’s tally. Overall, U-Haul boasts around 1M storage units, adding up to a total inventory of 89.6 million square feet — that’s the equivalent of more than 1.8 billion credit cards laid flat!
A Row of Credit Cards
#2: Public Storage – 241M square feet over 3,300 facilities
The runner-up in our list is Public Storage thanks to the large number of self storage properties included in their portfolio in the U.S. – which includes over 3,300 locations. Most of these are found in California, Texas and Florida, but the company has also expanded into Western Europe. This inventory amounts to a massive 241M square feet, roughly the same area that would be taken up by 31.9 trillion ballpoint pen tips — yep, that number has 12 zeros!
Stainless Steel Ball Bearings
#1: Extra Space Storage — 297M square feet in over 3,800 locations
Extra Space Storage takes the first spot as the largest owner of self storage properties in the U.S., owning over 3,800 properties in its portfolio. It is present in 42 states and Washington DC. In 2023, Extra Space acquired Life Storage, which brought together two industry-leading self storage platforms, leading to the addition of 1,198 properties to Extra Space’s portfolio. The $12.7B transaction brought a 50% increase to the company’s inventory by store count. The merger is expected to bring strategic, operational and financial advantages to shareholders. All in all, their inventory adds up to a mind-blowing 2.7M units with a total of around 297M square feet — equivalent to more than 2 billion slices of bread! Think about all the French toast you can make with that much bread! We sure are!
Ciabatta Bread on a Wooden Board
Self storage is big business these days, and for good reason. Every square foot rented represents space someone has freed-up at home, whether they stored furniture, books, kitchen appliances or even an RV. A lot of new storage space has been developed recently and there’s more on the way. With the many types of self storage available — including climate-controlled storage and RV storage — there’s solution for every requirement. Check out our handy unit size guide, and don’t worry, we’ve sorted them using square feet rather than ballpoint pen tips!
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