Storage Unlocked

What happens to self-storage and commercial real estate when a $1 trillion tech sell-off meets a frozen housing market and rising loan delinquencies ? I am your host, Thaddeus Campbell (Director of Business Development at S3 Partners), and on this episode of Storage Unlocked , I sit down with Chris Berg (Land Acquisition Specialist at Abernathy Holdings and "The AI Storage Guy") . We unpack Q3 sel...

Can artificial intelligence truly replace legacy underwriting workflows, or are operators just adding unnecessary complexity to commercial real estate fundamentals ? I'm Thaddeus Campbell (Director of Business Development at S3 Partners), and on this edition of Storage Unlocked , I am joined by Tyler Sellars and James Boldic, co-founders of Cactus AI . Tyler and James built one of the very first d...

Is it time to get aggressive with commercial real estate development heading into 2027, or is patience your highest-yielding strategy ? I'm Thaddeus Campbell (Director of Business Development at S3 Partners), and on this edition of Storage Unlocked , I sit down with my mentor and S3 Partners principal, Barry Sherman . With decades of experience delivering institutional storage, small-bay flex, and...

How long can you trust a construction estimate on paper when materials and fuel are actively fluctuating ? I am your host, Thaddeus Campbell, and on this episode of Storage Unlocked , I am joined by Joe Price (CEO) and Jordan Cater (Director of Business Development) of MLCO Construction . Joe and Jordan manage national builds across self-storage, small bay flex, boat/RV, and IOS facilities . In th...

What happens to self-storage fundamentals when residential homebuyer demand falls below its 2008 Great Financial Crisis low ? I am your host, Thaddeus Campbell (Director of Business Development and Strategic Branding at S3 Partners), and on this episode of Storage Unlocked , I sit down with Chris Berg (Abernathy Holdings, host of The Self Storage Report ) to break down the cracks widening across t...

What happens to your underwriting when borrowing costs move faster than cap rates ? I am your host, Thaddeus Campbell (Director of Development at S3 Partners), and on this episode of Storage Unlocked , I am joined by Lauren Feeney, Director of Acquisitions at Trojan Storage . Lauren lives in the underwriting trenches every single day . In this episode, we break down why capital costs are eating re...

Why are commercial real estate operators pivoting away from big-box industrial and traditional storage toward 1,500- to 5,000-sq-ft multi-tenant bays ? I am your host, Thaddeus Campbell (Business Development Director at S3 Partners), and in this episode of Storage Unlocked , I sit down with Will Skillman, President and CEO of Trowbridge Development and founder of Small Bay Industrial Base Camp . W...

Can an independent self-storage operator survive the wave of institutional consolidation while still relying on a five-dollar padlock and an angle grinder ? In this edition of Storage Unlocked , I am joined by Rob Kopp, founder of KISS Locks and owner of American Storage South . Drawing from more than two decades of developing, owning, and operating facilities, Rob shares a hard-hitting look at th...

Can you justify building small-bay flex at $15 to $16 NNN when vintage local inventory sits at $12 NNN ? On this episode of  Storage Unlocked , I sit down with Cody Payne, partner at FlexParks USA and founder of Small Bay Feasibility . Cody brings two decades of transaction and feasibility data to show developers how to separate viable flex dirt from costly mistakes . In this episode, I cover: Cro...

Can an industry event be engineered to deliver genuine operational ROI rather than the same recycled panels ? On this episode of Storage Unlocked , I sit down with Travis Morrow, President of National Self Storage and publisher of Modern Storage Media . Travis pulls back the curtain on the design, economics, and vision behind MSM's The Show, taking place November 4–6, 2026, in Atlanta at the Georg...

Can monetizing dead pavement and underutilized expansion land protect your facility's net operating income in today's rate environment ? On this episode of  Storage Unlocked , I sit down with Sydnie Wilda, Vice President of Property, Self Storage at Truck Parking Club . Sydnie brings years of hands-on property management experience to break down how self-storage operators are generating new revenu...

Is the frozen housing market actually protecting self-storage operations from a severe downturn? I am your host, Thaddeus Campbell, and on this edition of Storage Unlocked, I am joined by Noah Starr, CEO of Tracked IQ (TractIQ), the market intelligence platform monitoring over 72,000 facilities nationwide. Every quarter, the self-storage REITs release their numbers—and Noah joins me to cut through...

In this episode of Storage Unlocked, I am joined by Maurice Pogoda, founder and president of National Storage. Starting in 1987 with a map and a Rolodex, Maurice has built a 70+ facility Midwestern footprint that has stood the test of every major economic cycle over the last four decades. In this episode, I cover: The Cycle Playbook: Why post-COVID peaks were an anomaly and how a conservative "tor...

Welcome back to Storage Unlocked! I am your host, Thaddeus Campbell, and in this episode, I am joined by Zach Sette, co-founder and CEO of Outbidd. Drawing from a lifetime in commercial construction and development, Zach shares a unique multi-asset perspective on the macro forces reshaping commercial real estate. We unpack the looming $900+ billion debt refinancing wall hitting the market in the s...

What happens when you combine the leading 3PL business storage network with the premier 24/7 call center in self-storage? I am your host, Thaddeus Campbell, and in this episode of Storage Unlocked, I am joined by Laura Holmes (CEO of Warehouse Anywhere) and Shannon Charbonneau (VP of XPS Solutions) to pull back the curtain on their landmark acquisition. Together, we explore how integrating 24/7 li...

In this episode of Storage Unlocked, I am joined by two top-tier operators attacking small-bay from opposite sides of the country: Shane Decker (President of Decker Capital) and Andrew Dunn (Co-Founder of VAC Development, "The Value Add Cowboys"). Together, we break down the operational, development, and capital market realities of one of commercial real estate's most talked-about asset classes. I...

Can an independent regional operator genuinely beat the monolithic REITs when their same-store revenue flatlines at a mere 0.1%? In this episode of Storage Unlocked, I sit down with Andrew Jones, the Senior Vice President of Third Party at GoStore It, to lay out the definitive operational blueprint for surviving the institutional aggregation wave in July 2026. Andrew brings an elite pedigree strai...

In this highly tactical episode of Storage Unlocked, I am sitting down with Kusiima Boswell, co-founder of Terrakotta, to uncover why the real alpha in July 2026 commercial real estate is about processing speed and data validation. We move beyond the basic chatbot surface layers to evaluate how independent operators use advanced Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations to bypass expensive third-p...

Is your facility a real estate business or a technology platform that happens to sell a storage product? I am your host, Thaddeus Campbell, and in this episode of Storage Unlocked, I am joined by Jessica Johnson (The Storage Group) to pull back the curtain on the rapid, hyper-localized evolution of operational AI in July 2026. Fresh off winning the inaugural ISS Best in Business Award for their Ai...

I am your host, Thaddeus Campbell, and in this blockbuster episode of Storage Unlocked, I sat down with Chris Taylor, the Chief AI Officer at 10 Federal, to deconstruct the massive technological consolidation rewriting the self-storage industry in 2026 . Chris brings an elite pedigree straight from the front lines of NVIDIA to reveal how true enterprise automation requires a foundational data laye...

In this episode of Storage Unlocked, I pull back the curtain on two decades of historical data to uncover why the microeconomics of storage are showing real signs of recovery despite intense macroeconomic turmoil . I evaluate the massive transition from the post-GFC development freeze to an era that added 1 billion square feet of self-storage to the US grid in just under eight years . In this epis...

In this episode of Storage Unlocked, I sit down with institutional brokerage legends John Lindsey (Lindsey Self-Storage Group) and Austin McLeod (Matthews Real Estate) to map out the massive structural shifts rewriting the transaction market in June 2026 . We look directly past the headlines of Public Storage's pending third-quarter buyout of NSA to evaluate where actual values stand on the ground...

Can you scale a self-storage portfolio past 25 locations with only one employee managing the entire operation? I am your host, Thaddeus Campbell, and in this episode of Storage Unlocked, I am sitting down with Ryan Chapman (Lumio), Tyler Harper (Homegrown Storage), and Albert Kim (StoragePilot) to break down the rapid evolution of conversational AI voice agents . Over the past 12 months, the basel...

I am breaking down the massive macroeconomic and tech shifts defining our asset class in May 2026 . From Public Storage's blockbuster $10.5 billion deal to swallow NSA to a jaw-dropping discrepancy in same-store NOI growth, we are looking directly at the data points that prove the three-year downcycle has finally found its bottom . In this episode, I cover: The Cap Rate Inversion: Why active stree...

Are you building a Small Bay Flex portfolio for institutional capital, or are you building it for yourself?   I am your host, Thaddeus Campbell , and in this episode of Storage Unlocked , I sit down with three titans of the industrial flex market: Brett Turner (BKM Capital Partners) , Jeremiah Boucher (Patriot Holdings) , and Brian Whitmer (Doors and Spaces) . Together, we pull back the curtain on...