ORLANDO-Mike Mikkelson, a commercial real estate professional here for 30 years, will open this spring what he says is the first drive-thru, self-storage facility in Central Florida. He plans to convert seven of his 27 local conventional storage properties to drive-thrus at an estimated conversion cost of $15,000 to $20,000 each or an estimated total $126,000. Four of the seven properties will be converted over the next two years.

"Ours are not just facilities or units, but storage centers that offer just about every product and service a customer could need to pack, move or store," says Mikkelson, owner and president of Liberty Investment Properties Inc. based in suburban Altamonte Spring.

Customers will be able to rent, buy products and pay bills online at the company's newest brand, MyNeighborhoodStorageCenter.com. "We will always be open for business," Mikkelson says.

The first facility is planned at 7660 Majorca Place in the Dr. Phillips neighborhood of south Orlando. The center will have 84,460 sf of gross space and 66,200 sf of net rentable space. The six other neighborhood centers are planned for Apopka, Kissimmee, Lake Brantley, Lake Mary, Lake Underhill, Lakehurst and Oakridge. Each will have 80,000 sf of gross space and 68,000 sf of net rentable space. The average size of the rented space is 25 sf (5 x 5) to 600 sf (20 x 30).

Liberty's Self-Stor facilities were built in the early 1990s and converted to Shurgard Storage Centers in 1995 when Liberty partnered with Seattle-based Shurgard.

In addition to developing and managing MyNeighborhoodStorageCenter.com properties, Liberty has signed multiple development and franchise agreements with Wichita, KS-based Value Place to build 29 of the company's hotel-apartment properties throughout Florida at an estimated total build-out value of $160 million, as GlobeSt.com previously reported.