If the Self-Storage Assocation did a topic of the 2022 calendar year, it would be ‘unmanned facilities.’ Throughout the 2022 Tradeshow Circut, you could bet your multi-million dollar real estate investment that at least once during a speech, presentation, or roundtable the topic of unmanned facilities would fall from the tip of a presenter’s mouth. It was the achilles heel of all owners and operators as it was deemed the way to move forward in the fog of the pandemic.
Yet as we enter a new calendar year and begin to see new emerging trends, it’s time to retire the vernacular of ‘unmanned facilities’ because in truth there is no such thing. Remote management and virtual management certainly have weight to their category, but unmanned is an idea of the past.