Pacifica will soon see the transformation of five office spaces along Palmetto Avenue into self-storage units, an expansion that breezed through the planning commission approval process on Monday.
Storage Corner Group, which operates the nearly 50,000-square-foot lot and four other storage facilities in California, will convert the office spaces and one employee housing unit on the site into more than 130 additional storage units. They will also construct a new, seven-unit storage building where parking spaces are currently.
Storage units have existed on this commercial stretch of Palmetto Avenue since 1998, but have changed ownership over the decades. The company, in its written proposal to the planning board, wrote, “We seek to remodel the Property to better serve the moving and storage needs of the Property’s existing customers, as well as the broader local community and businesses in Pacifica.”
The company claimed that the five office spaces for rent are often vacant and “untenantable to office users because of the change in the demand for office space post COVID-19.” Commissioner Chris Redfield, however, asked whether any current office spaces are in use, and a company representative said that four are currently rented. The representative claimed that the process of notifying tenants has been amenable, and the company has directed current tenants to other office spaces available locally.
According to commercial real estate platform, LoopNet, there are just two available office spaces for rent in Pacifica currently. One 250-square-foot office space is available at Eureka Square, next to Oceana Market, and one 800-square-foot office space is open on Bill Drake Way near Esplanade Avenue.
Mike Wahlman, a Pacifica resident, was the only community member to speak at the project’s public hearing on Monday. Wahlman expressed concern about the loss of the one caretaker housing unit on the property and asked whether this property could instead be utilized as multi-unit housing. Because of the current zoning code, which designates this area of Palmetto as part of the C-3 service commercial district, board members said it does not allow for the construction of housing.
Commissioner Daniella Devine doubled down on this point in her comments prior to the unanimous approval of the permits required to greenlight the project. “I want to really mention that for these kinds of self-storage facilities, housing is not really applicable,” she said, adding that other office spaces are available in Pacifica. Devine added that storage is often valuable to local businesses that use units to store their products, or even use as their only brick and mortar space. “It may feel that we’re taking things away from this part of the community but in reality we are adding things,” Devine said. The company said that the units are popular and almost always at full occupancy.
