The Palm Coast City Council Tuesday approved the first phase of a multi-phase plan for a U-Haul storage facility at the west end of Whiteview Parkway on U.S. 1. The proposal has been in the works with the city’s administration for a year.
The council also approved the purchase of a 200-foot-wide right-of-way through the U-Haul property to accommodate the future westward extension of Whiteview Parkway.
The parcel the city bought was appraised at $700,000. The city is paying $280,000 in cash and providing $220,000 in transportation impact fee credits to U-Haul. The company agreed not to seek the balance of the appraised amount either in impact fee credits or in cash. (Impact fees are the one-time levy on new development to defray the “impact” of new residents and businesses on roads, parks, fire and so on.)
The first phase at the U-Haul facility will consist of a three-story, 120,000-square-foot building with 950 storage units and a 14,000-square-foot warehouse that will be taller than the larger building. The site is adjacent to another storage facility to its north. The U-Haul site will accommodate RVs. Future phases will include garages, bu that’s only conceptual for now.
Jimmy Jones, an engineer with JBPro, the engineering firm retained by U-Haul, said the 30-acre site will accommodate tree-preservation requirements since U-Haul will not be developing large portions.
Traffic impacts are not expected to be significant. “Self storage facilities are typically one of the lesser traffic generators,” City Planner Michael Hanson said. “A lot of us have storage units that we might only go to maybe once every couple of weeks, if we’re lucky at that. Otherwise, a lot of times we might not go for a month.”
The city’s planning board unanimously recommended approval of the U-Haul application in a March hearing that drew no public participation. The council approved the development unanimously.
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