California-based Strategic Storage Growth Trust will develop a four-storey, 900-unit self-storage facility on a 1.46-acre site it just acquired at 69 Torbarrie Rd in Toronto. It will be the "best and newest facility in the area,” boasts SSGT chairman/CEO Michael Schwartz, noting 600,000 people live within a five-mile radius of the property. The facility, facing Highway 400 and to be re-branded SmartStop Self Storage, will be completed by Q2 2017. Last year, SSGT acquired a site at 365 Fruitland Rd in Stoney Creek, where a 780-unit facility is planned.

Strategic Storage’s sister REIT, Strategic Storage Trust II, earlier this year acquired three facilities, in Burlington, Milton and Oakville—2,570 units and 232k rentable SF total. This was followed by its purchase of two more facilities in Burlington and Oakville—1,200 units. It brings SSTII’s Greater Golden Horseshoe portfolio to 11 properties. Both trusts are sponsored by SmartStop Asset Management, which Michael, above, chairs. He told Bisnow the goal is to become the GTA's No. 1 self-storage player by building a portfolio of 100-plus self-storage properties here in the next decade.