TORONTO-Strategic Storage Trust Inc., a REIT sponsored by Strategic Capital Holdings LLC, has made its first purchase in Canada with the $14 million buy of a 1,060-unit facility here. The trust has also signed up a joint venture partner to redevelop industrial buildings and buy more storage properties throughout the country.

The trust, through affiliate Strategic Storage Holdings LLC, has entered into a letter of intent to form a JV with Budget Development Partners to acquire operational self-storage properties, build new facilities and redevelop sites. The recently-closed deal is of a site at 4548 Dufferin St., about nine miles north of downtown Toronto in the North York area. The property was built in 1965 and was converted into self-storage in 2008.

The company already has an industrial building under contract in Mississauga, Ontario, just south of Toronto, for $5.5 million. Michael Schwartz, SSTI’s chairman and CEO, tells GlobeSt.com that the JV will look for existing properties more than trying to build new. “There’s pretty hefty development taxes in Canada. As long as we’re buying existing buildings and just upgrading the inside, we don’t have that same tax barrier to entry,” Schwartz says. The current contract deal should close in the first quarter, he says.

He says the self-storage business is moving steadily along, and acknowledged that the past couple years of owner-rental upheaval hasn’t exactly hurt the storage business. “We think things have bottomed out. There hasn’t been a lot of development, so there will be a lot of absorption. We think Toronto, and Canada, is a long-term growth prospect, and they’re underserved from a storage perspective,” Schwartz said.