20 years ago, Canadians viewed Mississauga as a commercial suburb of Toronto that was home to Pearson International Airport but otherwise of little interest. However, the exponential growth of Canada’s largest city has led to the municipality being both reinvented and reassessed. The arrival of condo developments like Aquanova has made it more desirable for residents. But it also spells good news for Canada’s thriving self storage industry.
Self storage in Mississauga
Till recently, storage units in Mississauga were used primarily by local Canadian businesses to store archived documents and the like. But that is rapidly changing. Central Toronto has experienced an influx of residents that has already seen its population exceed the 2031 projection estimated in a plan published in 2006. This has had an inevitable knock-on effect on the city’s outer suburbs.
Mississauga’s own residential population has doubled since 1990. Initially, this was predominantly through development of family properties that had no shortage of storage space. But since 2020, Toronto-style high rise condos are starting to appear. Apartment living demands a different approach to the way residents store their property, and storage units in Mississauga are now starting to be demanded for residential, as well as commercial, purposes.
Aquanova is just the beginning
Aquanova is a new collection of high rise condos that is currently under construction in Mississauga’s Lakeview Village, site of the former power facility on Lakeshore Road East. The whole development covers an area of 177 acres and will include condos in a range of sizes as well as shops, leisure facilities and green spaces. Exact floor plans for the condos are yet to be released, but a significant proportion will be single-bedroom apartments. While these will be aimed predominantly at young professionals who work in Mississauga or neighboring Toronto, they will also be of interest to older residents who are downsizing or retiring.
Understanding these demographics is vital for the city’s self-storage industry because storage space is likely to be highly limited in the new condos, especially the single bedroom units. Younger people are less likely to have accumulated large amounts of belongings, although the lack of on-site storage at the new condos will mean many might still have use for a storage unit. But for older residents with decades of accumulated belongings, it is likely to be a different story. Storage units come in a range of sizes, so exact demand is likely to vary according to resident demographics.
Even more to the point, Aquanova is only the beginning. The developers have been keen to stress that this is the inaugural development in what will be a series of new high rise projects planned for Lakeview Village. It means that the growth currently being witnessed in Mississauga is only the tip of the iceberg.
A growing market for self storage in Canada
The changing self storage market in Mississauga reflects a larger pattern that is being seen across Canada’s main residential areas. Overall, the market is experiencing significant growth, with market experts predicting a compound annual growth rate of almost eight percent between now and 2030.
This growth is primarily driven by the fact that house prices are soaring. Toronto’s population explosion has resulted in a significant hike in average property prices, which have more than doubled in the past 20 years. This has driven a trend towards downsizing, which has fueled demand for self-storage. Similar trends are apparent in Vancouver and other metropolitan areas.
This trend has, in turn, elevated the profile of the Canadian self storage sector and made it an attractive investment opportunity for both existing businesses to expand to new areas and for new businesses to start up. There has also been an escalation of interest from financial institutions south of the Canadian border, as well as from pension funds and real estate firms looking for safe investment opportunities in Canada.
