Self-Storage Feasibility Study Case Study: A 100,000 NRSF Four-Story Climate-Controlled Self-Storage Proposal at 50B Park Street in Dorchester, Boston, That Is Not Feasible at 60 Percent Leverage

A four-story, 140,000 SF climate-controlled self-storage building filed with the City of Boston in March 2026 for the Alsen Mapes industrial park near Fields Corner, tested in a market with 0.7 SF of storage per capita in the city and no new supply delivered in 2025. At a modeled total project cost of $30,634,350 ($306 per NRSF) the building produces a stabilized net operating income of $1,668,191, a yield on cost of 5.45 percent, and covers a 60 percent bank construction loan 1.13x in Year 4; the permanent take-out supports $17.4 million against an $18.4 million construction loan. Not feasible as proposed at 60 percent of cost. Feasible for the lender as restructured at 50 percent of cost, covering 1.35x in Year 4 with a $2.1 million take-out cushion; a sponsor underwriting the 8 percent yield that the largest operator targets cannot reach it in this market.

Model study prepared by MMCG Invest | Michal Mohelsky, J.D., FMVA | October 2, 2026

MMCG concludes that a four-story, 99,950 NRSF climate-controlled facility at 50B Park Street in Dorchester financed with a bank construction loan at 60 percent of cost is not feasible as proposed. At a modeled total project cost of $30,634,350 and a loan of $18,380,600 at 7.00 percent, the building covers its debt 0.99x in Year 3 and 1.13x in Year 4, below the 1.25x that bank construction lenders and permanent lenders require at stabilization, and it would need an economic occupancy of 94.2 percent, above the 88 percent forecast, to cover at 1.25x. The permanent lenders that would take out the construction loan size on the controlling test of 1.25x coverage at a 6.50 percent rate and 30-year amortization, which on the Year 4 cash flow supports $17,422,266 against a construction loan of $18,380,600, a gap of $958,334. The yield on cost is 5.45 percent, below the 5.75 percent institutional capitalization rate, so the stabilized building is worth $29,012,022 against a cost of $30,634,350. The causes are cost and rent, not demand: Boston is among the most supply-constrained large storage markets in the country, and the surveyed operators charge $2.13 to $3.23 per SF per month in-store for a 10 x 10 climate-controlled unit, but a $25.0 million land and construction budget at Boston prices requires more than those rents.

The same building is financeable on a different capital structure. At 50 percent of cost, a bank loan of $15,317,200 against buyer equity of $15,317,150, the building covers 1.19x in Year 3 and 1.35x in Year 4, and the permanent take-out of $17,422,266 exceeds the construction loan by $2,105,066. That structure is feasible for the lender, conditioned on confirmation that Warehousing is an allowed use in the site's zoning subdistrict and on the Article 80 approval, on a land basis supported by appraisal, and on rents verified by the operators' own in-place rent rolls. It is not feasible for a sponsor that needs the 8 percent yield on cost that the largest storage operator says it targets: at the modeled rents the building would need net operating income 47 percent higher, or a total cost of $209 per NRSF, to reach 8 percent.

This is an MMCG model study: a complete feasibility analysis performed on a real, publicly filed project using public data, prepared to show lenders and sponsors how MMCG tests an institutional-format storage project against construction lending standards, the permanent take-out and the development yield. It is not a client engagement. MMCG has no relationship with the developer, the landowner or the City, and the analysis does not represent an offer, an appraisal or a recommendation. The program, height, floor area, filing date and use classification are taken from the City of Boston Planning Department's project page for 50B Park Street and the Dorchester Reporter's report of March 4, 2026. The net rentable area and unit count were not disclosed by the developer; the study models 99,950 NRSF in 996 units on 140,000 SF gross, an efficiency of 71.4 percent, against 76.5 percent at a recently completed four-story facility in Canton, Massachusetts that reports 97,300 NRSF in 127,120 SF on 2.73 acres. The land allowance of $6,000,000, every construction cost, rent, income and loan figure and the loan terms are MMCG assumptions. The competitors' rates were read from the operators' own websites on October 2, 2026 where noted. The zoning use table, the parcel's sale history and assessed value, the developer's status, the competitors' rentable area, the Massachusetts and Boston regulatory environment for storage rents and the city's property tax rate were not confirmed and are disclosed limitations.

The Project as proposed would operate as a climate-controlled self-storage facility at 50B Park Street, Dorchester, in the Alsen Mapes industrial park near Fields Corner, an inner-city neighborhood of Boston. The City describes a new self-storage facility constituting a Warehousing use, with two new buildings of up to approximately 144,000 SF of floor area: an approximately four-story main building about 45 feet high and a single-story outbuilding. The existing improvement is a vacant flex building of about 20,500 SF last occupied by a state agency. The developer, Poverni Sheikh Group, described as a New Jersey company, filed its Letter of Intent on March 3, 2026, states that this would be its 23rd East Coast facility and its first in Boston, and intends to operate under a national storage brand. MMCG's model program comprises a four-story, 140,000 SF building with 99,950 NRSF in 996 climate-controlled units: 110 units of 5 x 5, 280 of 5 x 10, 300 of 10 x 10, 160 of 10 x 15 and 146 of 10 x 20, with three freight elevators and one passenger elevator, a drive-in loading bay, a ground-floor retail and rental office, and gated, camera-monitored entry. The facility would operate seven days a week with staffed office hours and 24-hour access, with a staff of three full-time equivalents under a management agreement with a national operator. The sponsor is a development entity with a limited partner, and the facility would be operated by the brand operator or sold to it at stabilization. The Project is positioned at an achieved 10 x 10 rate of $215 per month at stabilization, between the web and in-store rates of the facilities within three miles.

Marketing & Sales Strategy. The facility would launch through its operator's national platform, with web rental, search placement and the brand's customer base as the principal channels, and with a first-month concession through lease-up. Renter households, which are 64 percent of Boston's households, are the primary market in Dorchester, together with small businesses and contractors that need climate-controlled small units. The operator's revenue management would set rates by unit and by week.

Amenities

The site is 50B Park Street, Dorchester, MA 02122, parcel DORC-000000-000016-000517-000100 in the tax record, which reports 1.67 acres; the City of Boston Planning Department's project page lists 72,000 SF of land. The existing improvement is a vacant flex building that one source reports at 75,000 SF and the broker listing and the Dorchester Reporter place at about 20,500 SF; the study treats the smaller figure as more reliable. The project is in Article 80 Large Project review, a public comment period ran from June 22 to July 22, 2026 (a secondary source), and no Board approval was located as of October 2, 2026. No sale price, asking price or assessed value for the parcel was found. In 2023 Spirit Realty Capital bought parcels in the Alsen Mapes park including 50 Park Street for $26.8 million (Bisnow, secondary); whether that transaction included 50B was not confirmed. The study carries the land at $6,000,000, or $83.33 per SF of land, an MMCG assumption that an appraisal must replace.

The site appears to fall in the Article 65 Dorchester Neighborhood District, Alsen Mapes Local Industrial subdistrict. Section 65-21 allows a use in a Local Industrial subdistrict only if Table B marks it allowed or conditional, and the Table B cell for Warehousing was not retrieved, so the subdistrict mapping and the as-of-right status are inferred and not confirmed. The developer stated that it is right in line with the zoning and expects no zoning relief, only Article 80 review because of the project's size. Local Industrial subdistricts also carry design review under Section 65-37.1 and screening and buffering rules under Section 65-39. New York City has required a special permit for self-storage in much of its industrial districts since 2017 and Miami has prohibited it in its urban core zones since 2020, and the study notes that Boston's use table must be read rather than assumed. The Boston commercial property tax rate and the project's assessment were not pulled; the Year 4 budget carries property tax of $193,927, an MMCG allowance. Utilities were not confirmed; the site is in a developed urban district.

The primary market area is Dorchester, within about three miles of the site, which spans the 02122 and 02125 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas and adjoining neighborhoods of Boston and Milton.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts, Vintage 2025 estimates and ACS 2020 to 2024; Census Reporter, ZCTA profiles, ACS 2024 5-year estimates. The Boston metro median household income is $115,863.

The households per square mile are about 5,480 in ZCTA 02122 and 6,570 in ZCTA 02125 (MMCG calculation). Dorchester's household income is moderate and below the metro median, and the case rests on density, renter share and scarcity and not on affluence. A neighborhood profile from the Boston Planning and Development Agency reported that 65 percent of Dorchester's housing units were renter-occupied (ACS 2013 to 2017, a dated source).

The Boston storage market is supply-constrained. StorageCafe, using Yardi Matrix data, reported in June 2026 that the city holds 11 facilities and 643,067 SF, or 0.7 SF per capita, with an average 10 x 10 rate of $257. RentCafe reported in February 2026 that no new supply was delivered in 2025 or forecast for 2026, and that rents rose 11 percent year over year to $219; its March 2026 report named Boston as the national leader in rent growth at 9.7 percent. The Boston metro stands at 5.05 SF per capita against a national benchmark of 7.0 to 7.4. The city count of 11 facilities looks incomplete, since the national operators advertise more locations in the city alone, and the study treats the metro figure as the defensible benchmark and the city figure as directional. The national picture is a contracting pipeline: deliveries of about 52.9 million NRSF in 2026, 19 percent below 2025, and national advertised street rates down 1.9 percent year over year in August 2026. Recent deliveries and proposals in the metro sit outside the Dorchester trade area: Canton (97,300 NRSF), Boylston (103,000 SF, three stories) and Worcester (four stories), from secondary sources. No facility under construction or approved within three miles other than the subject was identified.

MMCG identified six storage facilities within about three miles of the site. Distances are MMCG estimates and were not measured. Rentable area is not published by the operators. The rates are web rates with in-store rates in parentheses, read from each operator's own page on October 2, 2026 unless marked.

Competitor Number 1 Extra Space Storage, Norwood Street This all climate-controlled facility is located at 41 Norwood Street, Boston, MA 02122 in the Neponset area, about 1.3 miles from the site, with an elevator and a heated loading bay, and is operated by Extra Space Storage. Its operator page lists a 5 x 5 unit at $49 ($88), a 5 x 10 at $78 ($140) and a 10 x 10 at $146 ($246). The rates are primary-verified.

Competitor Number 2 Extra Space Storage, Adams Street This facility with climate-controlled and drive-up units is located at 2 Adams Street, Milton, MA 02186 in Lower Mills, about 2.0 miles from the site, and is operated by Extra Space Storage. Its operator page lists a 5 x 5 unit at $57 ($102) and a 5 x 10 at $99 ($175); no 10 x 10 was available online. The rates are primary-verified.

Competitor Number 3 Public Storage, Southampton Street This predominantly climate-controlled facility is located at 290 Southampton Street, Boston, MA 02118, about 2.7 miles from the site, with an elevator, and is operated by Public Storage. Its operator page lists a 5 x 5 unit at $142 ($189), a 5 x 10 at $154 ($257) and a 10 x 10 at $242 ($323), with a $1 first month. The rates are primary-verified.

Competitor Number 4 CubeSmart, Massachusetts Avenue This facility is located at 968 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA 02118, about 2.8 miles from the site, and is operated by CubeSmart. Its operator page lists a 5 x 5 unit at $72 ($80), a 5 x 10 at $121.50 ($135) and a 10 x 10 at $191.70 ($213), with 10 percent off online. The rates are primary-verified.

Competitor Number 5 Extra Space Storage, Woodrow Avenue This facility is located at 250 Woodrow Avenue, Dorchester, MA 02124, about 1.8 miles from the site, and is operated by Extra Space Storage. A search result for the operator page showed no units available; rates were not captured.

Competitor Number 6 Public Storage, Morrissey Boulevard This facility is reported at 800 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, MA 02122, about 1.5 miles from the site. The address was found on an aggregator only and was not verified on the operator's site.

The verified web rates for a 10 x 10 climate-controlled unit are $146 to $242, or $1.46 to $2.42 per SF per month, and the in-store rates are $213 to $323, or $2.13 to $3.23 per SF. Web rates for a 5 x 10 are $1.56 to $3.08 per SF and for a 5 x 5 $1.96 to $5.68 per SF. The 40 percent gap between Extra Space's web and in-store rates at Norwood Street shows that new-customer pricing is promotional. The study concludes achieved stabilized rates between the web and in-store levels: $215 for a 10 x 10, above CubeSmart's in-store rate, with $85 for a 5 x 5, $135 for a 5 x 10, $300 for a 10 x 15 and $380 for a 10 x 20, a blended $2.15 per NRSF per month at opening and 3 percent annual increases. That is below the $257 average 10 x 10 that StorageCafe reports for the city, and the study treats it as conservative. Achieved in-place rent, not either headline, is what a lender should underwrite.

Units: 996

Source: operator websites accessed October 2, 2026; MMCG.

A 996-unit facility entering one of the most supply-constrained markets in the country leases faster than a suburban facility but not instantly. The largest storage operator's own filings state that physical occupancy is reached in two to three years only by offering lower rental rates during fill-up, and that revenue typically takes three to four years to stabilize. The model carries average economic occupancy of 38 percent in Year 1, 66 percent in Year 2, 82 percent in Year 3, 88 percent in Year 4 and 90 percent in Year 5.

Location: 50B Park Street, Dorchester, Boston, MA 02122 Size in SF (Gross): 140,000

Source: Marshall & Swift CoreLogic, MMCG

Total project cost of $306 per NRSF compares with the largest operator's development pipeline of 2.8 million NRSF at an aggregate cost of $483.5 million, or about $173 per NRSF, at June 30, 2026 (Form 10-Q). The difference is land, which is $62 per NRSF in this budget, a Boston cost level that a national construction cost report shows rising 3.9 percent year over year in the first quarter of 2026, and the financial reserve of $2,500,000, which covers construction interest of about $1.9 million and a lease-up shortfall of about $0.6 million. A $24 million construction loan was reported in June 2026 for an 85,330 SF, 586-unit climate-controlled facility in Wayne, New Jersey, about $281 of loan per SF of reported area, which indicates that coastal infill costs of this order are market costs and not outliers.

Loan Assumptions, As Proposed

The model carries operating expenses at 36 percent of effective gross income at stabilization, the middle of the 32 to 38 percent range of private operators, and phases the budget from 80 percent of the stabilized level in Year 1 to 103 percent in Year 5. The Year 4 budget of $938,358 comprises payroll of $242,409, property tax of $193,927, utilities of $113,124, repairs and maintenance of $72,723, insurance of $56,562, marketing of $72,723, administrative and software costs of $56,562 and a 5 percent management fee of $130,327. The public storage operators' same-store property tax rose 5 to 6 percent year over year in the second quarter of 2026 as new facilities were reassessed at completed cost, and the model grows the property tax line with the budget.

Stabilized net operating income of $1,668,191 in Year 4 is 5.45 percent of total project cost and $16.69 per NRSF. The building does not cover a loan of $18,380,600 at 1.25x in any year, and the construction loan's interest and the lease-up shortfall are carried by the financial reserve and by equity.

The building would need an economic occupancy of 94.2 percent to cover a 60 percent loan at 1.25x, against a Year 4 forecast of 88 percent.

A construction lender needs to see its exit. Permanent lenders and REIT bridge programs size on stabilized cash flow, and the study tests the Year 4 income against three standard tests at a 6.50 percent permanent rate and 30-year amortization.

The largest operator's bridge program provides three- to four-year interest-only loans priced over SOFR at spreads of 3.75 percent to 5.00 percent with a 1.0 percent fee, non-recourse, with the operator managing the property, and it originated $30.5 million at an average rate of 7.8 percent in the second quarter of 2026. The second-largest operator's bridge program lends up to 80 percent of value, interest-only and non-recourse, explicitly does not lend on construction, and carried $1.445 billion of bridge notes at June 30, 2026. Both are designed to take out a construction loan at certificate of occupancy, and both size to the in-place or stabilized value of the building and not to its cost, which is why the take-out, and not the budget, controls the construction loan.

At the 5.75 percent institutional survey rate the stabilized building is worth $1,622,328 less than it cost, and at the 6.59 percent average transaction rate it is worth $5.3 million less. Only at a 5.25 percent rate, which the study cannot support from a published Boston storage transaction, does value exceed cost. The development spread is negative in every case but one, and the largest operator's stated 8 percent underwriting target would require net operating income 47 percent higher or a total cost of $209 per NRSF.

The building supports a loan at 50 percent of cost. A bank construction loan of $15,317,200 at 7.00 percent against buyer equity of $15,317,150, structured as a limited partnership with a 10 percent general partner co-investment and a development fee of about 2.6 percent, covers 1.19x in Year 3 and 1.35x in Year 4, and its permanent take-out of $17,422,266 exceeds the loan by $2,105,066. The total project cost, the program and the rents are unchanged. The restructuring adds $3.1 million of equity at risk to the as-proposed structure and gives the construction lender a take-out it can see.

Loan Assumptions, As Restructured

The restructured building holds coverage above 1.0x in every case. It clears 1.25x in the base case and in the cases of rents 5 percent above forecast (1.46x), operating expenses 10 percent above forecast (1.27x) and economic occupancy of 85 percent (1.28x). It falls to between 1.16x and 1.24x in the cases of rents 5 percent below forecast (1.24x), a 10 percent cost overrun on a scaled loan (1.23x), a combined fall in rents and occupancy (1.18x) and a stabilized occupancy of 80 percent (1.16x). The as-proposed structure falls below 1.0x in the 80 percent occupancy case (0.96x) and the combined case (0.98x), and it covers 1.02x with a 10 percent cost overrun. At 7.50 percent interest the as-proposed coverage is 1.07x and the restructured coverage is 1.29x. The restructured take-out cushion is $2,105,066.

The determination of not feasible as proposed stands on the evidence above and is not conditioned. The determination of feasible as restructured is subject to the following conditions precedent:

The following items could not be verified from a primary source at the study date and are disclosed: the Table B use cell and subdistrict mapping; the parcel's sale history and assessed value; the developer's NRSF, unit count and capital structure; the competitors' rentable area and in-place rents; the rates at Competitors 5 and 6; the Boston commercial tax rate and the project's assessment; the Massachusetts and Boston regulation of storage rents and licensing; the persons per household and renter share at the ZCTA level; the project's status after the comment period; and the lending terms other than the two operators' published bridge programs, which come from broker and press sources.

This model study applies the methodology described on MMCG's self-storage feasibility study page. MMCG prepares self-storage feasibility studies for conventional, bridge, SBA and USDA lenders nationwide, with engagements from $4,900 and delivery in 9 to 16 business days, and "feasible at a lower leverage" and "not feasible as proposed" are regular outcomes of the practice.