With a strong economy, Denver boasts a flourishing small business scene that brings unique character to the Mile High City’s retail, restaurant, and service sectors. These businesses foster a sense of community and belonging, making their presence vital to the city’s identity.
While many factors contribute to their success, one often-overlooked service that supports them is self storage. For many small businesses, operating space is limited—this is where self storage steps in to help extend their workspace. Compared to expanding their premises or renting warehouse space, self storage is typically a more affordable option. A Denver storage unit averages around $165/month.
Wondering if self storage could be the right solution for your business? Below, we explore eight types of small businesses in Denver that rely on self storage, along with insights from local business owners who use it to stay organized and grow.
1.Retail and ecommerce
Serving a population of nearly 730,000 people, based on U.S. Census estimates, Denver is bound to have a vibrant retail scene across its neighborhoods. To get a better picture of the local offerings, Cherry Creek North alone is home to no more than 175 small businesses.
Across the city, you’re likely to find a wide array of retailers, from home improvement and furniture stores, jewelry stores, art galleries, bookstores, to thrift shops, with Denver ranking in the number one spot for second-hand stores.
For these types of businesses, physical stores are the common way to operate, which often means they must contend with a limited space. Whenever they have extra inventory, a storage unit is the ideal spot to keep it until it’s ready to hit the shelves. Similarly, e-commerce businesses can also benefit from using the service. Besides storing additional inventory, e-commerce owners can use a storage unit to keep merchandise that hasn’t yet been shipped, which can also sit in a storage unit pending delivery.
2. Restaurants and other food services
Denver enjoys a rich, diverse, and innovative culinary scene – hello, the Denver omelet and Fool’s Gold Loaf – and can cater to many tastes. Hey PB&J, the jam-colored food truck serving grilled gourmet peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or Humble Pie, an award-winning pie-making shop or Little Man Ice Cream shop are just some examples of food-related small businesses that cater to the local community.
Most of these places don’t typically have extra storage space for keeping seating furniture and kitchen utensils. This is where a storage unit can come in handy, helping to provide the space needed to keep these items during winter or when they’re not in use.
3. Construction businesses
Denver has been one of the top cities for real estate development, and with population soaring an impressive 13% in the last decade, the city is likely to add more housing. This will keep local construction companies and contractors busy, but what’s going to help support their activities? A less glamourous service, self storage is the quiet service that comes to the aid of these businesses, helping to support their day-to-day operations. “Self storage gives us flexible inventory management without needing a massive warehouse. We store high-end fixtures, specialty materials, and custom cabinets safely until installation day, which has dramatically reduced on-site damage and delays on our renovation projects,” said Mike Martinez, owner of Accountable Home Remodeling.
He also turned to climate control as it helps with sensitive materials. “What’s been particularly valuable is using climate-controlled units for temperature-sensitive materials like hardwood flooring and certain countertop materials that need acclimation before installation,” he added.
For other construction businesses, turning to self storage is a matter of gaining extra storage space when their main operating premises won’t do. “As a construction company, we are often in need of storing materials and equipment. We have a 2,000 square foot warehouse, but when we have extra material leftover from large jobs, we need overflow space,” explained Kyle Shirley, owner of Sol Vista Roofing. “This is when having a self-storage unit has been extremely helpful for us – and we are grateful to have top storage providers nearby our office,” Kyle also told us.
As for businesses focusing on electric-related issues, self storage proves its usefulness when the unexpected occurs. “The 24-hour accessibility has been crucial for our emergency electrical services. When a power outage hits Denver neighborhoods at 2am, I can quickly access our generator parts and surge protection equipment without returning to our main facility, cutting response time by 30-40 minutes,” shared Jeremy Jackson who runs JD Electrical Home Solutions.
“Having climate-controlled storage also protects our sensitive electrical testing equipment from Colorado’s temperature fluctuations. This has extended the lifespan of our diagnostic tools and saved us thousands in replacement costs over the past two years,” Jeremy noted.
4. Professional services
You can also find various small companies offering legal, accounting, consulting and marketing services in Denver. While utilizing local networks to reach a broad range of customers, these businesses also require support to operate smoothly. Many of them use office space to carry out their daily operations, and as growth is a natural step when business is thriving, they need space to hold the office furniture during a move to a bigger office space. Self storage can offer a temporary place to keep these items. Beyond temporary use, many of these businesses can turn to a storage unit to hold paper records, which could take up precious floor space if held in the main business premises.
5.Health care and social assistance
Denver is a health-conscious city, and its medical sector likely helps to promote wellness and a health-first attitude, whether through medical practices, counseling services, home health care providers or holistic medicine clinics. For these businesses, self storage provides support in multiple ways.
“Using self storage helps us keep the office in working order without having to pay a much higher price per square foot for storage on site. In addition, it allows a staging space for equipment, items with seasonal use, or things that take up space,” said Dr. Michael Lovich, founder of Delta S Performance. “For example, we are the only location in the world where you can try on Tokay Cleats before you purchase them. Otherwise, you have to guess your size, purchase them, and return the ones that don’t fit,” he added.
Self storage is also helping their business grow in a unique way. “One last thing, the benefit of temporary storage is opening other opportunities. We acquired a large amount of gym equipment for free, but don’t have the space for it yet. Without a place to put it, I’d have to pass up the opportunity,” Michael told us.
6. Tech and innovation
Often referred to as “Silicon Mountain”, Denver can hold its own thanks to its growing tech sector. The city has its fair share of software development, digital marketing, cybersecurity and other tech-oriented businesses.
While most of the work that tech-focused companies do lives in the cloud, our experts agree that self storage plays a key role in safeguarding physical assets.
“We keep a small, climate-controlled unit to safeguard legacy audio and video media that regulations require us to retain. The same unit doubles as disaster recovery storage, holding spare encrypted drives and replacement computers so our team can swap in fresh hardware and maintain turnaround times if anything fails at our offices,” says Ben Walker, CEO and founder of Ditto Transcripts.
Beyond typical use, Ben turns to self storage for seasonal items too. “It’s also a convenient staging area for trade show booths, banners, and branded gear, everything we need when conference season rolls around again,” he added.
7. Hospitality and event planning businesses
The hospitality industry in Denver comprises small businesses, including tour operators and event organizers, which benefit from Denver’s status as a tourist destination. These businesses can also use self storage to support some aspects of their activity – many of them need extra space for keeping linen, chairs, signage and other event gear. They may also require scalable storage during peak event seasons. A storage unit can also serve as a central place to organize items for streamlined event setup.
8. Creative enterprises
Denver boasts a vibrant creative culture, as evidenced by its diverse range of florists, artisans, design studios, cultural organizations, and more. As they serve their communities with artistic flair, they also need operational support—this is where self storage steps in.
” Our ever-changing inventory of banners has been in the same unit(s) for 20 years! Since the business was started by the original owners in 2004. While some banners may move quickly, others sell more slowly, so our unit has some recent inventory and some older inventory” Amy Norton, owner of BetterWall, an ecommerce business specializing in promotional banners tells us.
“We previously would also store banners that were waiting to be recycled — those that were not in condition for resale. Vinyl recyclers required a minimum of a ton before they would pick up so at times we had multiple units. This is no longer the case as it become cost prohibitive to store and the recycling market changed for these materials,” Amy added.
Storage features such as indoor and outdoor units also come in handy for Amy’s business, as they cater to different types of banners. “We have a 10′ x 24′ outdoor unit and previously had a 10′ x 15 indoor unit.[…] The indoor unit was a consideration for two-ply banners sewn together. We store those flat to keep them from wrinkling up and the climate control helped the vinyl “relax” and flatten,” Amy explained “One-ply banners are rolled and stored in boxes in the outdoor unit as they do not have the same issue with the two- ply banners wrinkling”.
In Denver’s fast-paced and space-conscious environment, self storage can prove to be an essential service for small businesses looking to streamline operations, reduce clutter and also expand their growth potential.
