Suburban Giants and Urban Risers: Where America’s 100 Largest Metros Fall on the Self Storage Map
Key Takeaways
- Nationally, new self storage construction over the past decade splits 54% suburban and 46% urban.
- New York, Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth are the country’s largest suburban self storage markets by volume, each delivering over 14 million square feet outside their city cores over the past decade.
- Boston builds almost exclusively suburban self storage, shaped by high land costs, zoning restrictions, and older housing stock with built-in storage.
- Las Vegas leads urban self storage with 96% of the past decade’s new supply delivered in city cores, followed by Colorado Springs, CO, and Wichita, KS.
- 42 of the country’s 100 largest metros built the majority of their new self storage in urban areas.
- In Providence, RI, and Worcester, MA, over 60% of all existing urban self storage was built in just the past decade, driven by downtown residential revivals that created demand from near zero.
Self storage has long been a suburban story. Across America, 54% of existing inventory sits outside city cores, a ratio that new construction over the past decade has largely preserved.
Yet within that national picture, 42 metros delivered the majority of their new supply in urban areas, driven by city-core residential growth, shifting demographics and the economics of urban infill.
We looked at both sides of that divide — metros where suburban development dominates and why, and where urban construction has taken hold.
Suburban self storage dominates across large, fast-growing metros
Cheaper land, easier permits and larger families with complex storage needs have kept suburbs the default destination for most of the country’s new self storage. The metros where that pattern is most pronounced tend to fall into two categories: large, fast-growing markets where suburban residential expansion has outpaced everything else, and historic metros where land for new commercial construction is almost inexistent in the city cores.
Large, fast growing metros lead in suburban volume
The metros delivering the most suburban self storage by volume are predictably the country’s largest and fastest-growing.
New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ, delivered 25 million square feet of new self storage over the past decade, the largest volume of any metro in the country, with 69% going to the suburbs. That distribution partly reflects deliberate regulatory choices: New York City has actively restricted self storage development in its industrial business zones(opens in new tab) since 2017, steering development toward suburban New Jersey and the broader suburban ring where land is more available and the process of getting new projects approved more straightforward.
Close to 15 million square feet of suburban self storage was delivered across the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA, metro area over the past decade, much of it tracking the explosive residential growth that has pushed Atlanta’s footprint across a sprawling network of master-planned communities and highway-linked suburbs stretching from Cherokee County in the north to Henry County in the south
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX, managed to add around 14,5 million square feet of suburban self storage during the past decade. However, it also stands out as the most balanced large metro in the ranking, with its total inventory split almost evenly between urban and suburban. The current pipeline, however, points firmly outward, with 75% of the 2.9 million square feet planned or under construction in suburban areas. Dallas-Fort Worth continues to expand into new suburban employment and housing nodes(opens in new tab), where larger homes and steady household accumulation drive storage demand, and developers are following that growth.
Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN, saw close to 10 million square feet of suburban self storage over the past decade against 3.2 million urban, a gap that reflects both the scale of the metro’s suburban residential footprint and a regulatory environment that has grown increasingly restrictive for urban development. In May 2025, the Chicago City Council banned self storage in most business, commercial, and downtown zoning districts(opens in new tab), a move that will likely widen that urban-suburban divide further in the decade ahead.
Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ, delivered a total of 15 million square feet of storage space, with suburban areas absorbing the majority, a reflection of the scale of residential growth in communities like Gilbert, Chandler and Surprise that continue to draw families outward.
Land-constrained metros build almost exclusively suburban
Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH, saw almost exclusively suburban new construction over the past decade, with 99% of its 8 million sq. ft. delivered outside city cores. Despite a dense, renter-heavy urban core, new self storage there has long been constrained by high land costs, zoning restrictions and a scarcity of developable urban parcels, pushing most new supply to the suburban ring.
In Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI, 95% the decade’s 6.5 million square feet of self storage deliveries went to suburbs. Here, a prolonged period of urban population loss has left a fragmented city core where demand is thin and developer interest limited. Growth and storage development has followed residents to Oakland, Macomb and western Wayne County suburbs.
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA, is the Inland Empire: a metro whose identity is fundamentally suburban, built around affordable land, a massive logistics economy, and families priced out of coastal Los Angeles. The local self storage landscape reflects that geography directly, with 89% of the decade’s new construction happening in the suburbs.
Where urban self storage is taking hold
Building urban self storage requires a dense renter population, developable land that hasn’t been priced out of reach and a local market with room to grow. Gen Z’s pull toward dense, amenity-rich cities(opens in new tab) has been creating exactly that demand: city apartments are smaller, roommates(opens in new tab) are common and personal storage space is at a premium.
We looked at America’s 100 largest metro areas by the share of new self storage construction delivered in urban areas over the past decade — and 42 of them built 50% or more of their new inventory in urban cores.
Where opportunities exist, developers pursue urban self storage development on two fronts: adaptive reuse, converting vacant offices, warehouses, and retail spaces into modern storage facilities, and ground-up construction on the infill parcels that residential developers pass over. In the right markets, the economics work.
Mid-size metros lead in urban share of new construction
The metros where urban self storage construction is prevalent are mostly second-tier ones, with just two of the top 10 exceeding two million residents. These are places where downtown cores are actively attracting new residents and investment, and where land remains accessible enough to build.
Where people downsize(opens in new tab) or trade suburban square footage for urban convenience, storage demand follows. Sun Belt cities, where rapid in-migration has delivered the renter-heavy, apartment-dense urban population that makes urban self storage not just viable, but essential.
1. Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas
Over the past decade, 96% of all new self storage delivered in the Las Vegas metro area (6.4 million square feet) landed in urban areas. The entire current pipeline follows the same pattern: every square foot planned or under construction is urban.
The logic is rooted in land economics. Central Las Vegas carries a long-standing inventory of underused commercial parcels(opens in new tab) and surface lots along its mid-century arterial grid — sites that residential developers routinely pass over as too small or irregularly shaped, but that work well for storage. Suburban communities in the metro area, meanwhile, face intense competition from residential and big-box retail for every available parcel, making urban infill the more accessible and often more economical path for storage developers. In a metro built almost entirely without basements, where apartment living is the norm and units trend small, the demand side is equally clear.
2. Colorado Springs, CO
Colorado Springs ranks second nationally, with 89% of its new self storage — over 2.1 million square feet — delivered in urban areas over the past decade. The pipeline points in the same direction: 91% of planned and under construction space is urban.
The backdrop is a city in the middle of a sustained downtown revival(opens in new tab), with new apartment projects reshaping the urban core and drawing a growing number of residents into city living. Many of them are outdoor enthusiasts navigating the storage demands of skiing, camping, climbing, and cycling gear in a city defined by its proximity to the Rockies — creating exactly the kind of overflow storage demand that urban facilities are positioned to serve.
3. Wichita, KS
Wichita delivered close to one million square feet of urban self storage over the past decade — 86% of all new construction in the metro. Nearly a third of the city’s entire urban storage inventory has come online in that same period, a sign of how much ground the market has covered in a relatively short time.
The driving force is a city that has been reinventing its downtown(opens in new tab) from the ground up — new residential projects, renovated historic buildings, and a growing professional class choosing urban living over the suburban sprawl that long defined this metro area. For those residents trading square footage for location, self storage has become a natural extension of city life, filling the gap between compact apartment living and the belongings that come with it.
4. El Paso, TX
El Paso saw 85% of its new self storage, nearly 925,000 square feet, delivered in urban areas over the past decade, with planned and under construction projects tracking almost identically at 84% urban. The city’s position as a major cross-border trade hub, its young and growing population, and a downtown redevelopment push that has concentrated rental housing in the urban core all point in the same direction.
The off-base housing footprint of Fort Bliss — one of the largest Army installations in the country — adds further depth to urban demand, with military families clustered in northeast El Paso’s urban neighborhoods generating the kind of transitional, high-turnover storage demand that the sector knows well.
El Paso’s zoning framework makes urban development particularly accessible for storage operators: self storage is permitted by right not only across all commercial and industrial districts but also in all apartment zoning districts, which gives developers significant flexibility to locate facilities close to where urban renters actually live.
5. Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL
Cape Coral-Fort Myers registered over 3 million square feet of urban self storage delivered over the past decade — 83% of all construction in the metro — with nearly half of Cape Coral’s entire urban inventory coming online since 2016. One of the fastest-growing metros in the country, it has absorbed a continuous wave of in-migration, with seasonal snowbird demand adding further pressure on storage capacity in the principal cities.
The regulatory environment has also shaped where development lands. Faced with managing rapid commercial growth, Cape Coral amended its land development code in 2024(opens in new tab) to govern where and how new self storage facilities can be built, including a provision for mixed-use developments, channeling new builds toward established urban locations while preserving suburban commercial corridors for other uses. The pipeline’s gradual shift toward balance — 59% urban, 41% suburban — reflects a market adapting to those parameters as suburban population growth builds its own case for new supply.
6. San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX
San Antonio is the second metro in this ranking to surpass two million residents, after Las Vegas. About 82% of the self storage built here over the past decade (close to 6.4 million square feet) is located in urban areas, a concentration driven by a renter-heavy urban core and the housing demand generated by Lackland AFB and Fort Sam Houston, two of the country’s largest military installations, both embedded within the city.
The current pipeline tells a different story: 51% urban, 49% suburban — a near-even split that signals a market in transition. The I-35 corridor connecting San Antonio to Austin, passing through the fast-growing communities of Schertz, Cibolo, and New Braunfels, has emerged as one of Texas’ most active residential growth zones, generating a suburban renter base at a scale that now justifies standalone storage development. With the urban market well-supplied and suburban population accelerating, the next decade is unlikely to look much like the last.
7. Scranton-Wilkes Barre, PA
No less than 81% of the self storage built in the Scranton metro over the past decade is located in urban centers, a major reversal of the metro’s existing inventory, which is 62% suburban. In fact, 45% of all urban self storage in Scranton was built in just the past decade, pointing to a concentrated and recent shift in where development is happening.
Residential conversion of historic buildings across the metro area has brought more people living downtown than ever before, while the presence of multiple universities — including the University of Scranton, Marywood, King’s, and Wilkes — anchors a steady renter population in the urban core. Meanwhile, new residential construction across the suburban counties of Lackawanna and Luzerne has been on the back burner, leaving the suburban ring largely static while the urban cores have been the primary locus of new housing activity. Storage has followed that residential momentum inward.
8. Durham-Chapel Hill, NC
Durham-Chapel Hill ranks 8th, with 81% of its 1.8 million square feet of new self storage going to urban areas over the past decade and nearly half of the metro’s entire urban inventory delivered in that same window.
The Research Triangle’s gravitational pull explains much of it. Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill together generate a large, constantly renewing population of students, researchers, and medical professionals who live in dense urban neighborhoods, move frequently, and rarely have space to spare. That combination of density and turnover is one of the most reliable demand profiles in the self storage sector. Chapel Hill’s zoning framework reinforces the urban concentration further: the town requires self storage to share a lot with other commercial or institutional uses(opens in new tab), which effectively steers new facilities toward established mixed-use areas rather than standalone suburban sites.
However, the pipeline is beginning to reflect broader shifts in where the Triangle is growing. With 51% of the 214,000 square feet currently planned or under construction pointing suburban, Chatham County to the southwest is emerging as a spillover destination and new residential approvals along the Chapel Hill-Durham border corridor are bringing housing — and eventually storage demand — to areas that were largely undeveloped a decade ago.
9. Tucson, AZ
In Tucson, 80% of the self storage built over the past decade, around 2 million square feet, was delivered in urban areas. The concentration reflects two anchors embedded in Tucson’s urban core: the University of Arizona, whose huge campus sits just blocks from downtown and drives a dense, high-turnover renter population across neighborhoods like Fourth Avenue, West University, and the Congress Street corridor; and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, which adds a military population with similar transient, renter-heavy housing patterns.
Even so, suburban storage is catching up from a low base: roughly 43% of all suburban inventory in the Tucson metro (511,000 square feet) was built over the past decade, reflecting the sustained residential expansion in Marana and Oro Valley. The current pipeline reinforces the urban dominance for now, with three quarters of planned and under-construction space in urban areas, but as the suburban population continues to grow, that ratio will likely narrow.
10. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX
About 77% of all self storage built over the past decade in the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metro, nearly 1.4 million square feet, was delivered in urban areas, compared to 400K square feet in the suburbs. Both urban and suburban populations grew substantially over the period, but the character of that growth differs in ways that directly shape storage demand.
The metro’s three principal cities form a dense corridor along the US-83 expressway, anchored by a young population with growing families and a rapidly expanding rental market. Urban renters in small apartments, without garages or overflow storage, generate structurally stronger demand for self storage than the metro’s suburban owner-occupied households. McAllen also overhauled its land development code in 2024(opens in new tab) for the first time in 50 years, introducing mixed-use zoning and reducing parking requirements, making urban development more flexible and accessible for developers across commercial uses.
The current pipeline of 318,000 square feet maintains that two-thirds urban, one-third suburban split, suggesting the pattern is holding even as suburban communities like Tres Lagos and North McAllen see new residential development.
Northeastern metros, at the forefront of urban self storage inventory growth
A different picture emerges when looking at which metros have grown their urban self storage inventory the most over the past decade. Older Northeastern cities such as Providence, RI, Worcester, MA, New Haven, CT, Albany, NY, and Philadelphia, PA, where a recent wave of downtown residential investment has created new demand, expanded their urban inventories at a fast pace.
In Providence, RI, a sustained downtown revival(opens in new tab) anchored in historic building conversion has transformed a largely vacant urban core into a thriving residential neighborhood, with about 66% of the metro’s existing urban self storage inventory delivered during the past decade alone.
Worcester, MA, has been experiencing a massive residential development boom(opens in new tab) that has reshaped its urban core. New Haven, CT, has maintained a similar trajectory, with a flurry of new construction in downtown and surrounding neighborhoods and a local push for urban housing(opens in new tab) that shows no signs of slowing. Self storage has followed in both cases: 63% and 52% respectively of each metro’s existing urban inventory was added over the past decade.
In Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY, 48% of the metro’s urban inventory was delivered over the past decade, and the current pipeline suggests the trend is holding: two thirds of the 500,000 square feet planned or under construction are in urban areas.
Fast-growing Sun Belt cities building their urban cores from scratch are equally prominent in this ranking. Huntsville, AL, is the standout: population grew by over 20% over the past decade, with the urban core expanding faster than the suburbs, and half of the metro’s urban self storage inventory was built in that same period. Des Moines, IA, presents a similar scenario, with urban residential development driving self storage construction close to where people live. Almost half of its urban inventory is new, even as the overall market remains predominantly suburban.
Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL, is another metro building its urban storage base rapidly from a low starting point. Over 3 million square feet of new space, or about 48% of its urban self storage, was delivered over the past decade, driven by sustained waves of in-migration. Hurricane Ian’s destruction in 2022 added a further layer of transitional demand in the final years of the period, accelerating rebuilding activity and concentrating storage needs in the principal cities. Durham-Chapel Hill, NC, similarly delivered 47% of its urban inventory during the decade — nearly 1.8 million square feet concentrated in the Research Triangle’s dense urban corridor.
Below you can see the urban vs suburban distribution of the self storage existing inventory and new construction in the country’s largest 100 metro areas:
Self storage remains a predominantly suburban sector across America, but the urban pull manifests as well. In many metros across the country, self storage has become as much a part of city life as the apartment buildings it serves. For renters navigating tight apartments and urban lifestyles with no shortage of belongings, that means more options closer to home. For developers, it raises the question of where the next wave of self storage deliveries should occur.
Expert opinions
Below, industry experts share their perspective on what’s driving urban self storage demand and where the sector is headed.
Marc Goodin
CEO of Storage Authority Franchising(opens in new tab)
How do you see the relationship between urban living and self storage demand evolving?
For many years, developers, especially larger developers, preferred to build in Urban areas vs. Suburban areas. Often because of higher demand from higher population density, more apartments, higher traffic counts, higher occupancy, and higher rental rates. In other words, more profits for less risk. Urban areas also often have more existing buildings that can be converted to self storage.
If a self storage facility implements a first-class sales and marketing plan, the urban facility is going to get significantly more bang for its efforts and marketing dollars than the suburban location. Urban location will have many more renters in a given radius. Even 5 – 10 times the population. This means you have more renters “to steal” or appeal to. And given the higher population, a new facility in urban areas will have less impact on existing facilities than if the same facility was built in a suburban area.
As self storage has become a main street investment, the density of self storage in urban areas has taken off and, in some cases, has saturated many urban areas. And when you couple that with significantly higher development and land costs and more restrictive zoning, more developers are choosing suburban locations for their next self storage project.
What are the biggest challenges of developing self storage in a city environment?
What’s going to happen over the next ten years is hard to answer. Larger tracts of land are becoming harder to find in suburban areas, so you will see more multi-story facilities in suburban areas. The smaller non-REIT developers are going to continue to build in suburban areas because the high cost of development is out of their comfort zone or financial limits.
More and more large developers are considering suburban areas, when only a few years back they only developed in metropolitan areas and urban areas. More and more towns and cities, small and big, are rewriting their self storage regulations, making approvals more difficult and reducing the area where self storage can be built.
Given the slowdown in new self storage construction in the last couple of years, along with the continued slowdown in construction over the next three years, now is one of the best times to build self storage in both urban and suburban locations.
Tom de Jong, MBA, SIOR
Executive Vice President, de Jong Self Storage Team, COLLIERS
How do you see the relationship between urban living and self-storage demand evolving?
Overall, demand for storage has risen steadily over the past few decades and adoption by Millennials, Gen X’ers and Gen Z’ers has increased more rapidly. Urban demand from commercial users has also increased. Ever shrinking multi-family unit sizes and a diminishing supply of urban warehousing will continue pushing demand going forward. Developers are also building larger facilities on smaller footprints in urban environments to accommodate this growing demand.
What are the biggest challenges of developing self storage in a city environment?
Getting project approvals is one of the biggest hurdles to developing self storage in many urban environments. Once approved the costs to build multi-story facilities has increased dramatically over the past 4-5 years, making the economics of urban developments ever more challenging.
Where do you see urban self storage heading over the next decade?
Urban development of self-storage will continue strategically in markets that support the more challenging economic environment faced by developers. Adoption of technology will continue improving operational efficiencies across the industry and allow self storage to be placed into smaller spaces; think under-utilized parking garages, vacant office buildings and replacing parking lots.
AJ Osborne
CEO & Founder Self Storage Income
How do you see the relationship between urban living and self storage demand evolving?
Urban living and self storage have become more closely aligned and this trend will only continue. Rising rents and limited space are making self storage an increasingly natural part of city life. Our relationship to real estate has changed as the way we live and work has changed: people are more mobile, renter households are growing and living costs have risen. These shifts will keep making self storage a more normal part of urban living. As density increases, tenants will stay longer, and demand will grow, with people turning to storage not just during life transitions, but as a regular part of everyday life.
What are the biggest challenges of developing self storage in a city environment?
Right now, one of the biggest challenges is the cost of land. Rates and occupancy have softened over the last few years, but the cost to build has not. Land costs in most cities have stayed high or even gone up while rates and occupancies have decreased. The denser the city, the less land available and cities want to focus on better utilization of what little there is, so entitlements become a real challenge. This is why conversions have become a good option in downtown areas.
Where do you see urban self storage heading over the next decade?
With little land available and prices staying high, rates in densely urban areas will most likely continue to rise. As housing density increases, population can grow and outpace supply quickly. And as housing costs climb, people can afford less space, further increasing the need for self storage in intensely populated, high-cost areas.
George Mortimer
Co-Owner & COO, Self Storage Income
How do you see the relationship between urban living and self storage demand evolving?
Generally speaking, more and more people continue to use self storage for different reasons. As the average home size in the US continues to decrease and people downsize, it makes sense that consumers in denser markets would turn to storage units for their belongings. Unit type matters here as well — people moving to urban areas are generally moving into smaller living spaces than in more rural areas, so smaller units like 5x5s and 5x10s tend to show higher demand in high-density areas compared to the rest of the country.
Where do you see urban self storage heading over the next decade?
Storage is closely tied to the housing market. As people change homes, renting a storage unit helps them through transitional periods in their lives. When you factor in the rising cost of living, renting a storage unit has become an extension of people’s homes, especially in urban markets. Rather than paying significantly higher rent for a larger apartment, renters can maximize their living space while storing the rest of their belongings nearby.
Over the next decade, there is opportunity for this trend to push urban facilities toward smaller unit sizes and tighter integration with residential development, for example storage built into or next to apartment buildings rather than standalone. For urban residents who pair a storage unit with a smaller living space, this could mean longer rental periods. That creates an opportunity for operators to look closely at length-of-stay data to better understand what is actually driving customer needs.
Methodology
This analysis was conducted by StorageCafe(opens in new tab), an online platform that provides nationwide listings of storage units.
We examined the 100 most populous U.S. metro areas and analyzed the distribution of self storage inventory between urban and suburban areas. Metro areas were ranked by the share of new self storage construction delivered in urban areas between 2016 and 2025. We also analyzed how much of each metro’s existing urban and suburban inventory was built during that same period.
For the purposes of this report, census tracts located within the principal cities of each metro area were classified as urban; all remaining tracts within the MSA were classified as suburban.
Population data is sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Self storage construction and inventory data comes from Yardi Matrix(opens in new tab), StorageCafe’s sister platform and a leading provider of data and analytics for commercial real estate investors, brokers, and lenders.
Fair use and distribution
This study serves as a resource for the general public on issues of common interest and should not be regarded as investment advice. The data is true to the best of our knowledge but may change if amendments to it are made. We agree to the distribution of this content but we do require a mention in return for attribution purposes.
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