In another sign of L.A.’s self-storage boom, Johnson Development Associates, an arm of the South Carolina-based Johnson Group, plans to build a warehouse facility on the site of an existing Courtyard by Marriott hotel in the San Fernando Valley.
The roughly 2.5-acre property is located at 21101 West Ventura Boulevard, in a commercial area just off the 101 Freeway in Woodland Hills. Johnson wants to subdivide the site into two parcels and build a six-story storage building, according to a project description registered with the L.A. Planning Department.
The new construction would include roughly 104,000 square feet of warehouse space and 7,000 square feet of office space. The development team also seeks a zoning update. The full plans have not yet been registered, and it was unclear what changes, if any, may be in store for the 127-key hotel.
For the last year Los Angeles, and particularly the San Fernando Valley, has been at the forefront of a national self-storage boom. In June, one analysis from the website RentCafe found that more than 6.3 million square feet of storage space was planned for L.A., second among all metro areas in the country, and in recent months developers have filed for new projects in Downtown L.A., Mar Vista and Van Nuys, among others.
“There’s a genuine need in that area,” Greg Buskett, the developer behind one Van Nuys project, said in June. “I think every other [facility] within five miles is 97 percent occupied.”
Johnson Development Associates, the firm behind the Woodland Hills project, is a multifamily, industrial and self-storage developer based in Spartanburg, South Carolina and operates throughout the country, with a SoCal office in El Segundo.
The firm is one of three companies that form part of The Johnson Group, also based in Spartanburg. An LLC tied to another Johnson Group firm, OTO Development, bought the Woodland Hills site for $26.3 million in May 2021 from another hotel operator, according to property records.
The three-star Courtyard by Marriott currently commands weekday rates of around $170. The largest building on the site went up in 1966 and was remodeled in the 1970s, according to records, and the property has an outdoor pool.
The Johnson Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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