City could consider moratorium on storage buildings

By John McLoone

PRESCOTT – The Prescott Plan Commission gave its stamp of approval to a new seven-building storage development planned for Orrin Road, between Dollar General and New Adventures Learning Center.

The 3.85-acre site at 1045 Orrin Road is owned by Thone Development, which is planning to build one climate-controlled storage building with entrance doors on the west and south sides of the building and six garage-door style storage buildings. The climate-controlled building would be 21,720-square-feet in size and the other buildings would range in size from 4,800-squarefeet to 7,920-square-feet. The business will be known as Prescott Self Storage.

The garage buildings will be fenced in behind the main self-storage building. City Administrator Matt Wolf said the site is zoned for commercial use currently.

The developer would plant evergreen trees on its southern side, where it abuts a residential area.

Following plan commission recommendation, the matter was on the city council agenda May 9 for final approval.

At the Prescott Area Chamber of Commerce meeting Wednesday, May 4 at First National Bank, Wolf was asked his opinion on whether Prescott is getting to the point where there are too many storage unit developments.

“We do have a lot,” said Wolf. “It was one of the things I was actually going to talk to our city attorney about, if there’s a possibility that we can put a moratorium on the development of storage facilities. With the condo (storage) buildings going in down on 35 and these, then there are the ones across the street from where these are going to be located, we have an abundance of storage facilities that are occurring.”