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 Ferris Solomon can
hardly believe the success of the boat and RV storage business
his family started just two years ago in Jacksonville, Fla.
The Solomons were well known around town for their other
businesses, primarily freight salvage. Over the years, they’d
also invested in various land parcels. The idea of launching a
storage facility was virtually an afterthought.
“We’d been operating our freight
business out of a 75,000-squarefoot building on 6 acres we’d
bought on Beach Boulevard here in Jacksonville,” Ferris
explains. “Some adjacent property came up on the market a few
years ago, and we bought another 7 acres. The property was
kind of wooded, and kind of just sitting there. I said, ‘You
know, we ought to be able to come up with something to do with
this property that would at least pay for the property
taxes.’”
A friend who owned a flourishing
marina casually mentioned to Ferris how busy he was, and how
he needed a place to refer customers with boat trailers and
RVs to store. “It was like a light bulb coming on,” Ferris
recalls. “I thought, daggumit, this would be a great
location.”
Getting Started
 The
Solomon trio—Ferris, his brother, Douglas, and nephew,
George—looked into costs and, armed with a few issues of Inside Self- Storage for guidance,
jumped into the storage business. Ferris’ assessment of the
property as a great location turned out to be an
understatement. The parcel was on a main road in a high-growth
area, close to the inter-coastal waterway, a major public ramp
and the interstate.
Ferris believed offering both RV and
boat storage would be the fastest way to fill up. Several
marinas were in the area and an RV dealer operated down the
road. “We were really new to it,” Ferris says. “We thought we
could get by with a grass lot, and found out quickly that
wasn’t going to work—we got tired of calling wreckers to pull
the RVs out of the sand.”
Crushcrete, a byproduct of concrete,
solved the surface problem. The Solomons enclosed all 14 acres
of the storage area with an 8-foot, welded-steel fence from a
German manufacturer. Ample lighting and video-surveillance
cameras were added, along with an area for customers to wash
their boats and vehicles. Having pulled a boat in the past,
Ferris knew the difficulty of backing up boats and RVs, and
decided to sacrifice some storage space to include wide roads
in the design.
 Before beginning
their storage project, the Solomons had to win the proper
zoning. In a public hearing, nearby homeowners voiced concerns
over the possibility of viewing unsightly broken-down trailers
and boats from their backyards. They were pacified with
promises to construct an attractive 50-foot berm, heavily
landscaped to screen the area. “Everyone was very pleased and
happy with what we did,” Ferris says.
Solomon’s RV & Boat Storage
features 400 units, nearly all uncovered. Monthly rates vary
according to size. The $ 125 spot is 40-feet deep and allows
renters the luxury of driving through. Cost for a 40- foot
space requiring drivers to exercise their parking skills is
$95. Interior spaces, which are 12-by-28 feet, go for $89 per
month.
Rewards Rain Down
Fate did its part to help push
Solomon’s RV & Boat Storage to success. In booming
Jacksonville, marinas are fast being snatched up by developers
who replace them with high-dollar condominiums. Though a few
of the condos are including wet slips, average boat owners are
increasingly priced out of the market and left with nowhere
affordable to store their watercraft. Also, decades-old
ordinances prohibiting homeowners from parking boats and RVs
in their front yards suddenly began to be enforced—six months
after Solomon’s opened its doors.
 “That generated a
little bit of traffic,” Ferris says. “We’ve always had a good
reputation in our other businesses, so we knew a few people in
boat and RV sales who sent us customers too.”
Creative leasing of other parts of the
expansive property provided even more storage income. Boat
King, a boat retailer, leased 30,000 square feet for
operations and reserved some rental spaces as well. “As they
sell boats to people, those who don’t live on the water or
have access to a marina are also storing their boats with us,”
Ferris says. “We have a lot going for us.”
Another chunk of the former
freight-business headquarters is leased to World Gym. Ferris
estimates 25,000 square feet of warehouse space is left; the
family plans to convert it to a climate-controlled,
records-storage facility next year.
Future enhancements include the
addition of covered boat/RV units. Ferris’ research indicates
the metal, three-sided covers will cost $4,500 each. If the
right contractor is found, the Solomons would like to
construct 20 to 50 in the near future. In the meantime, Ferris
has conceived an economical way to slowly make improvements.
Tenants who desire covers may erect them at their own expense,
with the caveat they meet all city specifications on wind
load, etc. The structure stays with Solomon’s, and in
exchange, the tenant receives a free year’s rent.
“It enables me to get some covered
storage without having to pay for it, and at the same time get
future higher rents,” Ferris says. Seven patrons have
participated in the offer so far.
.... the Solomons have enjoyed running
an enterprise that is far less labor-intensive and
time-consuming than past endeavors. Ferris says the storage
business has vastly exceeded his expectations. Most important,
the reliable income stream and light workload motivated him to
make a major lifestyle change.
“I was hoping this would just bring in enough money to
pay taxes on the property, but it’s allowed me to
semi-retire with the freight salvage business we’ve been
in for 30 years,” Ferris says. “Now, instead of working
10 hours a day, six days a week, I’m down to six hours a
day, five days a week. I’m taking some time off and doing
things with my wife and family I should have been doing
years ago, but couldn’t. It’s really worked out well.
I’ve been very fortunate.” For more information on
Solomon’s RV & Boat Storage, call 904.223.0888; e-mail
solomons@fdn.com;
visit www.solomons.net.
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