The Town of Banff has scrapped plans to build a self-storage facility in the industrial compound because the project would not be financially viable.
Administrative officials said they have been working with Lo Cost Mini Storage – the only company that submitted a proposal following a bid call – to establish realistic capital and operating costs to determine the feasibility of the project.
But engineering coordinator David Brennan said the project would not see positive financial numbers as a stand-alone project, with capital costs of close to $3 million and the available rentable square footage.
“Conceptually, this project could have supplied an alternate source of revenue to support other Town services,” said Brennan. “However, in this case, a thorough process and business case development has demonstrated that the project is not financially viable.”
The original plan was the Town of Banff would provide funding, including financing, for the design and construction of a self-storage facility at 300 Hawk Avenue.
A private company would operate the facility, collect revenue and provide net revenue to the Town of Banff.
A total building area of 15,050 square feet was proposed, where the self-storage component occupying an available town-owned commercial allotment of 10,050 square feet, leaving 5,000 square feet for the Town to store its fleet of vehicles.
A market survey by NRG Research Group indicated there was demand for storage space, both residential and commercial, and the proposed self-storage area would be completely rented.
In conjunction with the self-storage vehicle storage project, the Town of Banff also applied for Green Trip funding from the province for several transportation-related initiatives, and last month funding of $4.7 million was approved for a bus storage facility.
“This project will be presented to council for consideration during the capital budget debate this fall,” said David.
