Gantry, the largest independent commercial mortgage banking firm in the U.S., has secured $130 million of permanent financing for a six-property Trojan Storage-owned self storage portfolio totaling approximately 600,000 rentable square feet across facilities in California, Oregon and Washington. The properties include three newly completed, pre-stabilized storage facilities located in California, and three recently acquired existing facilities in California, Oregon and Washington, targeted for their value-add potential as occupancy and rents are adjusted to market rates while quality is improved to align with the standards of the Trojan Storage brand.
Gantry’s Andy Bratt, Principal, and Amit Tyagi, Senior Director, with the firm’s Irvine and Los Angeles production offices, respectively, secured the financing on behalf of Trojan Storage. Financing was structured with one of Gantry’s life company lenders, featuring a 10-year term at a fixed, mid-3% rate, and a significant interest only period later transitioning to a 30-year amortization schedule. Obtaining fixed-rate permanent financing, considering the pre-stabilized nature of the portfolio, required creative structures that will remain in place until the portfolio achieves full stabilization. These are structures often reserved for other asset classes.
According to Gantry’s Andy Bratt, “Self storage as an asset class has come of age across our spectrum of traditional, fixed rate lenders as they become more and more comfortable underwriting the unique operative model and fundamentals of this asset class. Gantry has been instrumental in exposing the capital markets, particularly insurance company lenders, to the asset class over the last decade. Gantry executed the first storage loans for many institutions over the years. These were early days in what has now become a substantial business for Gantry. We have continued to grow our self storage financing capabilities and have created a powerful niche in space.”
