Big storage company opens here
PODS franchisee leases space in Valley complex
By Linn Parish
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS
A franchisee for PODS Inc., a national storage and moving company that does business as Portable On Demand Storage, has entered the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene market.
The franchisee, Tampa, Fla.-based Storage Mobility LLC, has leased about 23,000 square feet of office-andwarehouse space in the Spokane Business & Industrial Park, at 3808 N. Sullivan, for its operation here, says Michael McNichols, the Salt Lake City-based regional manager for Storage Mobility. It started offering its services here earlier this month, he says.
The PODS operation here, which will serve Spokane and Kootenai counties, currently has only one employee, but the company likely will add between 10 and 12 people over the next two years, McNichols says.
The Spokane office is one of 10 that Storage Mobility has opened. The company has franchise rights for 59 PODS territories nationwide and is in the process of opening a number of additional outlets throughout the U.S., McNichols says.
PODS is an alternative to conventional moving services and self-storage in which a large container, similar in appearance to an overseas shipping container, is dropped off at a business or residence and is loaded by the customer, McNichols says. Depending on the customers’ needs, the container can remain on site, be stored at a PODS warehouse, or moved to a different location locally.
The company also hauls filled containers long distances.
Containers come in two sizes—a 768-cubic-foot container that typically is large enough to accommodate goods from a 1,200-square-foot home, and a 1,024- cubic-foot unit that typically is big enough for goods from a 1,500-square-foot home.
PODS, founded in 1998, is based in Clearwater, Fla. The company currently has 88 locations nationwide.