MCSS Development Sells 480 KSF Self Storage Portfolio

4001 NW 77th Ave. Image courtesy of MCSS Development & Investment

MCSS Development and Investment has sold a portfolio of five trophy self storage assets encompassing 4,141 units in key submarkets of metropolitan Miami. Jernigan Capital Inc. acquired the 480,000-gross-square-foot collection of Generation-V facilities, which operates under the CubeSmart brand, for an undisclosed price.

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The five self storage assets are all multi-story facilities that MCSS, formerly Miami City Self Storage, constructed between 2016 and 2018. Carrying the address of 1103 S.W. 3rd Ave., MCSS Brickell offers 75,000 square feet of net rentable space in downtown Miami’s Brickell submarket, while MCSS West Doral and MCSS Doral, located at 590 N.W. 137th Ave. and 4001 N.W. 77th Ave., respectively, feature 77,000 net rentable square feet each. The remaining portfolio consists of MCSS Coconut Grove, a 52,000-square-foot property at 2434 S.W. 28th St. in Coconut Grove, and the 85,000-square-foot MCSS Pembroke Pines at 18460 Pines Blvd. in Pembroke Pines. As of mid-September, the portfolio had a physical occupancy of 75.8 percent.

MCSS didn’t have to look far for a buyer for the state-of-the-art self storage facilities; the developer has a history with Jernigan. In the first quarter of 2018, Jernigan closed an $83.3 million investment in the MCSS portfolio under its bridge lending program. The investment came in the form of five first mortgage loans, each of which provided Jernigan with a first right of refusal to acquire the respective assets upon sale.

Sell some, build some, buy more

With the completion of the five-asset portfolio disposition, MCSS is left with six self storage facilities totaling 700,000 square and a national development pipeline of several facilities. Earlier this year in May, Ben Carr, MCSS president, told Commercial Property Executive that the company had deals in the works in New York, New Jersey and California. According to a second quarter 2019 report by Cushman & Wakefield, markets such as Los Angeles and New York are still viewed as favorable development markets due to the high barriers to entry and population density.

And despite the big portfolio sale, MCSS is still very much in the acquisitions business. The company recently launched a self storage acquisition venture focused on the vigorous pursuit of properties in the country’s top 25 MSAs.