A business owner has converted part of an old working men’s club into much-needed storage space for people in the area.
David Clark’s new business venture Orange Box Self Store Ltd is located on Abbey Road, Barrow, next to Abbey Apartments. The huge building, which used to be an old cabaret premise, has been fitted with 29 self-storage units which range from 35 square feet up to 175 square feet, with potential plans for more units depending on demand.
David, 54, decided to create the premises into self-storage units after seeing a huge demand for them during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said: “About eight years ago I bought the old engineers working men’s club on Abbey Road and two-thirds of that I converted into serviced apartments. The old cabaret building I didn’t do anything with and it fell derelict. “During the first part of lockdown I went in to take the ceiling down and I realized it was a very big box and you could fit two levels of storage in.
“It was obvious it could be a self-storage unit. I had previous plans to turn it into 12 nice modern apartments but the pandemic ended that idea. “So if it works really well I will expand on the top floor with another 54 units. “It is a modern storage facility with high security – it has alarms, CCTV and high-security doors so everything is safe from everybody.
“The lowest unit costs £15 per week and people can stay for as little as a week or as long or longer than a year.”
David said despite there being local competition, the self-storage industry grew rapidly during the pandemic due to shops that closed having to put their stock somewhere and secondly the high rate of separations and divorces.
He said: “The self-storage business is doing very well as a national business and it’s growing all the time. The idea is you would use it for moving house or storing documents and online sellers put their stock into a small unit at low cost.”
Orange Box Self Store Ltd is set to officially open on March 7 but people who are interested can pre-book any available units now by calling David on: 07582712708 or emailing him at: orangeboxselfstore@outlook.com
