Aaron Facca, the newly appointed Vice-President of Operations at Mini Mall Storage Properties (Mini Mall), brings a wealth of experience and entrepreneurial drive to the freshly launched fund, managed by Avenue Living Asset Management. Aaron Facca has come on board with a mandate to help grow Mini Mall into a national brand.
“We are very excited to have Aaron join the Mini Mall team. Aaron is well respected across the industry and brings 13 years of experience managing Class B & C self-storage assets across Canada. He has had an immediate impact on our operations thus far, and we are thrilled to continue developing the Mini Mall vision with him,” said Adam Villard, CEO of Mini Mall Storage Properties.
“When I started in the storage industry, it was still a relatively new market in Canada, even in the A-class centres. But now we’ve seen a lot of consolidation in the bigger cities, and the next generation,” said Facca. “We’re putting B and C markets together in a way that only we can.”
Until now, no one in the industry has had the reach or capacity to consolidate those markets in an efficient way, bringing scale to individual storage operations dispersed across the country.
“In the larger centres such as Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, people take a high level of service and experience for granted,” said Facca. “The exciting part for me personally is being able to tap into the Avenue Living ecosystem of maintenance, service and the call centre to bring an A-class service as well as level of experience to our markets in smaller centres.”
Adam Villard, CEO of Mini Mall, said Facca comes to the company with an incredible amount of proficiency, especially in the areas of technology, automation and efficiency, a key pillar in Mini Mall’s strategic development model.
“Beyond his experience, he’s the right fit. He has an entrepreneurial spirit with a strategic mind, and an eye to build and grow operational elements to the next level. Aaron and the rest of our team will be building a large national brand, from the ground up,” said Villard.
Aaron Facca’s experience in the self-storage business goes back to his university days, when he was cleaning storage units while getting his degree in Business Economics from the University of Saskatchewan. He worked with Storage Mart in Saskatoon for almost 10 years, rising up the ranks to Regional Manager for the Prairies. Leveraging this experience, Aaron moved to Calgary to take over the management of a large national self-storage brand, Real Storage. He was integral in helping to create a successful exit strategy for Real Storage when it sold its portfolio in early 2019.
The storage property industry is growing due to a number of reasons, including the downsizing of homes in large urban centres as more people move to condos. The average size of both homes and building lots is shrinking. In addition to seasonal overflow, storage has become a way of life for many people, with Baby Boomers downsizing and Millennials living in smaller homes, while still needing storage space for their possessions.
“Consumers are looking for options in all available price points. But mainly, they want to feel they are investing in a safe, clean facility for their personal belongings. Furthermore, they want a friendly person to help them out, either over the phone, via online chat, or excellent customer service in store,” said Facca. “Our mandate is to provide the best customer experience possible.”
