Nathan graduated with his journalism degree from Auburn University in 2017. After growing up in the flatlands of rural Alabama with his parents and older sister, Nathan enjoys Western Colorado's natural resources and recreational opportunities. He currently covers education and business for The Daily Sentinel.
Grand Garages, a garage condo company, is set to open in Grand Junction next year.
The 54,000-square-foot facility will feature 50 for-sale garages, with units ranging from 700- to 1,900-square-feet each. The facility will be located at 2471 Industrial Blvd., near the Grand Mesa Shopping Center. Pre-construction unit prices range from $206,000 to over $500,000.
Purchasing a lot not only gives customers the space, but also the ground beneath the space.
"(The garage condo concept) started with folks who needed more space for boats, RVs, things of that nature, and couldn't find it at a traditional self-storage facility but also couldn't build a shop in their backyard because of how constrained houses are," said Playground Properties' Gerrit Van Maanen, one of the project's developers. "This is really the perfect solution for those folks."
Van Maanen identified two types of ideal clientele: those storing beloved personal items and those seeking a smaller industrial space to be used for their business.
"Maybe you're parking your truck or your wife's car in the street near the driveway because you keep the classic car in your garage all the time. That car might deserve better than that, so it's time to move it to its own dedicated space. Your family is going to thank you for that," Van Maanen said.
"Similarly, if you've got a boat or an RV, keeping that in traditional storage is not the best place for it, or outside in a normal parking lot, when you could own a piece of commercial real estate that is an appreciating investment... We've also got a host of amenities that comes with that: vehicle vacuums, air compressors, RV dumps. It's a perfect one-stop-shop."
Van Maanen called the units a potential "home base" for users' recreational items like boats, cars, RVs, dirt bikes, ATVs and more.
"You can keep all that stuff there -- work on it there, wrench on it there -- instead of in your driveway or garage," he said.
He also explained how the business plans to appeal to business owners.
"Grand Junction has been undersupplied for traditional industrial space, particularly small industrial space. When people build industrial, like Amazon coming to Grand Junction recently, they're building 50,000 or 100,000 square feet of industrial space, and that leaves the small business owner forgotten about when we think about building industrial space. It's not economical to build a 1,000-square-foot industrial warehouse for a small business," Van Maanen said.
"If you're a business owner and you're thinking, 'I'm paying $3,000-4,000 a month in rent, this is getting out of hand, my rent is going up all of the time, I don't own the asset, I'm not getting any type of appreciation on it, I can't do what I want there,' then this is the type of space for them. They can set up shop, keep some extra equipment, some warehousing, keep some trucks there, have a place for folks to meet in the morning."
He added that Grand Garages will have an owners' clubhouse -- including a conference center, a kitchen, bathrooms, TVs and coffee -- that can be utilized for business team meetings. He also said the business will likely establish a condo owners' association to give everyone with space a say in property affairs.
Van Maanen was asked why Grand Junction was chosen as the location for this service.
"Because we have been in Colorado and we've been hearing a lot of great things about the growth in Grand Junction. One of the things we look for when we're developing these properties is that the population is growing. We want to see that people are moving to this particular location, which we saw in Grand Junction," he responded.
"The other thing that's important to us is having relatively affluent communities, and that's something we know Grand Junction has going for it: a strong population of business owners and people whose incomes are on the rise. Those are the ideal buyers for this type of asset."
Van Maanen said that the business has been working through the city's development process for well over half a year. He believes the site plan will be approved soon. Grand Garages has received a TEDS (Transportation and Engineering Design Standard) exception from the city, allowing several driveways in and out of the property.
Ground will be broken on the project in November, Van Maanen believes. That will be followed by a 10-month build. Grand Garages has consulted with local civil engineering group Austin Civil Group and local architecture group KDA (Kraai Design Architecture), citing their "local expertise."
Despite that time until the business is ready to go, though, there is already interest in Grand Garages' spaces.
"We're really excited about the fact that we launched our sales (in early July) and have already received six reservations for the 50 units that we have," Van Maanen said. "The response from the community has been really strong. The units are selling fast. Our hope is to have all 100% of these units pre-sold by the time we break ground."