Public Storage
Self-Storage Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT)Founded 1972- Updated June 2026
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Last reviewed: June 2026
CorpDigest
Public Storage
Company History
Founded 1972 in Glendale, California
Last reviewed: 2026-06-10 · By Swet Parvadiya
Founded in 1972 by B. Wayne Hughes and Kenneth Volk Jr. In Glendale, California, the company has evolved from a regional mini-warehouse operator into a dominant, technology-driven real estate landlord with over 240 million net rentable square feet. The origin of Public Storage is a classic tale of American entrepreneurial vision, rooted in the post-war economic boom and the increasing mobility of the American population in the early 1970s. The company was founded in Glendale, California, strategically located in the heart of the Sun Belt, providing access to the deep pool of technical talent and capital required to execute the vision. The early days of Public Storage were characterized by aggressive acquisition and rapid construction.
The origin story of Public Storage is not just a history of a company; it is a mirror of the evolution of the American economy, reflecting the shift from a manufacturing-based society to a consumption-driven, highly mobile population. From the early days of building single-story mini-warehouses in the California suburbs to the complex deployment of automated kiosks and AI-driven pricing algorithms, the journey of Public Storage is a profound testament to the power of strategic vision, financial discipline, and the relentless pursuit of owning the physical foundation of the American storage economy.
B. Wayne Hughes co-founded Public Storage in 1972 in Glendale, California, alongside Kenneth Volk Jr. A forward-thinking entrepreneur with deep backgrounds in real estate and finance, Hughes understood that the massive demographic shifts of the 1970s and 1980s, including the increase in divorce rates and the rise of the dual-income household, required a massive build-out of physical storage infrastructure that the fragmented independent operators were ill-equipped to manage efficiently. He pioneered the model of the national self-storage operator, acquiring small, regional portfolios and consolidating them under the Public Storage brand, rapidly building a national footprint that could be leased to consumers and businesses. Hughes's vision transformed the business from a local real estate venture into a critical component of the American real estate ecosystem, establishing the operational standards and financial discipline that would guide the company through the savings and loan crash, the 4G LTE boom, and its eventual conversion to a REIT. His leadership established the foundational DNA of the company, prioritizing the acquisition of high-quality, strategic real estate that would become the bottleneck assets of the storage economy.
Kenneth Volk Jr. co-founded Public Storage in 1972 in Glendale, California, partnering with B. Wayne Hughes to build the first major national self-storage operator in the United States. While Hughes focused on the real estate acquisition and operational management, Volk's strength lay in the financial structuring, strategic planning, and capital allocation that kept the company solvent during its rapid early expansion. His focus on maintaining a disciplined balance sheet and avoiding excessive leverage provided the company with the financial flexibility required to survive the brutal real estate crash of the early 1990s. Volk's financial discipline and strategic foresight helped stabilize the business during its formative years, laying the administrative and financial foundation that allowed the company to eventually thrive as a publicly traded REIT. His legacy of financial prudence and strategic foresight remains deeply embedded in the corporate culture of Public Storage today.
B. Wayne Hughes and Kenneth Volk Jr. found Public Storage in Glendale, California, pioneering the national self-storage operator model and beginning the aggressive acquisition of regional mini-warehouse portfolios.
Public Storage lists on the New York Stock Exchange, providing the access to public capital markets necessary to fund the massive build-out of the self-storage network and compete with larger real estate providers.
The company converts to a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), unlocking massive shareholder value, eliminating corporate income tax, and maximizing the cash flow available for distribution to investors.
Public Storage executes a massive strategic investment in Shurgard Self Storage, establishing a dominant footprint in the European self-storage market and creating a global platform for future growth.
The company aggressively deploys its proprietary dynamic pricing algorithms across its national portfolio, allowing it to optimize revenue per square foot with a level of precision that independent operators simply cannot match.
Public Storage acquires the Simply Self Storage portfolio, instantly adding hundreds of high-quality facilities to its national network and expanding its dominance in key Sunbelt and coastal markets.
The company executes the monumental $10.5 billion acquisition of NSA Storage, transforming Public Storage into an even more dominant force in the most supply-constrained metropolitan corridors in the United States.
To execute a massive strategic consolidation of the self-storage industry, instantly adding hundreds of high-quality facilities to Public Storage’s portfolio, primarily in high-barrier-to-entry coastal markets and rapidly growing Sunbelt corridors.
To significantly expand the company's national footprint and solidify its position as a top-tier provider to consumers and businesses during the aggressive deployment of dynamic pricing technologies.
Public Storage was founded in 1972 in Glendale, California by B. Wayne Hughes and Kenneth Volk Jr., who built one of the first commercial self-storage facilities in the United States and effectively pioneered the modern self-storage industry as an investable real estate asset class. Hughes had a background in real estate development and identified self-storage as an underdeveloped property type with attractive economics: low operating costs, minimal staffing requirements, modest construction expense per square foot, and steady consumer demand from households needing to store excess belongings during moves, downsizing, life transitions, and small-business inventory storage. The first Public Storage facility opened in El Cajon, California in 1972, and the company expanded rapidly through the 1970s by acquiring land in suburban locations with good freeway visibility and building standardized one-story metal-clad storage facilities with drive-up access to individual units of varying sizes. Within a decade, Public Storage had become the largest self-storage operator in the United States. The orange door and signage became an iconic brand identifier across the Sun Belt. Hughes' early insight that self-storage could be operated as a scaled real estate business with national branding rather than a fragmented local industry shaped the company's strategy for the following 50 years and is widely credited with creating the modern self-storage REIT category.
Beginning in 1980, Public Storage raised capital for facility development through a series of public limited partnerships marketed under the Public Storage Partners brand, allowing retail investors to own interests in specific portfolios of self-storage properties while Public Storage continued to manage the facilities. The limited partnership structure was a common real estate investment vehicle in the 1980s, providing tax-advantaged passthrough income to limited partners and providing the underlying real estate sponsor (Public Storage in this case) with access to retail investor capital that supplemented institutional financing. Dozens of Public Storage Partners partnerships were marketed across the 1980s, raising hundreds of millions of dollars cumulatively and funding the construction or acquisition of hundreds of self-storage facilities. The limited partnership funding model fit the self-storage industry well because the underlying asset was simple, repeatable, and produced steady cash flow that could be distributed to limited partners. As tax law changes in the late 1980s reduced the attractiveness of the limited partnership structure and as the self-storage industry matured, Public Storage gradually consolidated many of the partnerships through tender offers, mergers, and the 1995 conversion to REIT structure, simplifying corporate organization while retaining the properties.
Public Storage converted to a real estate investment trust structure in November 1995, formally becoming Public Storage Inc. as a publicly traded REIT listed on the New York Stock Exchange and eliminating the previous corporate and limited partnership structure that had characterized the company through the 1970s and 1980s. The REIT conversion provided several strategic benefits. First, tax efficiency. As a REIT, Public Storage avoids corporate income tax on earnings distributed to shareholders, provided it distributes at least 90 percent of taxable income annually as dividends, materially improving after-tax economics relative to a regular corporation. Second, access to public equity markets at scale. The REIT structure attracts a deep pool of yield-oriented institutional and retail investors who specifically allocate to REITs as a separate asset class, lowering the cost of capital for property acquisitions and development. Third, simplified corporate organization. The conversion consolidated multiple Public Storage Partners limited partnerships and operating affiliates into a single publicly traded entity, eliminating the complexity of managing dozens of separate partnership structures. The 1995 REIT conversion positioned Public Storage as the largest publicly traded self-storage REIT, a position it has continued to occupy along with subsequent peer entrants including Extra Space Storage, CubeSmart, and Sovran/Life Storage.
Public Storage's property portfolio has long been concentrated in Sun Belt markets across California, Texas, Florida, the Carolinas, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and other southern and southwestern states where population growth, household formation, and economic expansion drive demand for self-storage. The Sun Belt focus reflects deliberate strategic choices made over decades. First, demand. Population in-migration to Sun Belt states has consistently outpaced national averages, driving household formation, residential mobility, and demand for transitional and long-term storage. Second, supply economics. Sun Belt land has historically been less expensive than coastal Northeast markets, allowing Public Storage to develop and acquire facilities at lower per-square-foot cost and at scale. Third, year-round operation. Mild Sun Belt climates allow customers to access storage units year-round without weather-related disruption that affects Northeast and Midwest demand patterns. Today Public Storage operates more than 3,000 properties totaling more than 240 million rentable square feet, with the majority of net operating income generated from Sun Belt markets. The 2022 PS Business Parks acquisition for $7.6 billion and 2023 Simply Self Storage acquisition for $2.2 billion further deepened Sun Belt exposure, while the European business operates separately as Shurgard Self Storage SA, a Belgian-listed company in which Public Storage retains an equity stake.
Public Storage acquired Shurgard Storage Centers Inc. in August 2006 in a stock-for-stock merger valued at approximately $5.7 billion, adding both Shurgard's US storage portfolio and its substantial European self-storage operations to Public Storage. Shurgard, founded in 1972 and headquartered in Seattle, had built one of the largest US self-storage portfolios and had pioneered self-storage in Europe through Shurgard Europe operations in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. The European business operated under the Shurgard brand with hundreds of facilities. Following the acquisition, Public Storage integrated the US Shurgard properties into the core Public Storage portfolio but kept the European business as a separately operated entity. Subsequent transactions evolved the European structure: in 2018 Shurgard Self Storage SA listed on Euronext Brussels as an independent company, with Public Storage retaining a meaningful equity stake of approximately 35 percent. Shurgard Self Storage SA now operates more than 250 European facilities under its own management and brand, while Public Storage focuses its operating attention on the US business. The 2006 transaction effectively gave Public Storage long-term economic exposure to European self-storage without operational complexity, an arrangement that has persisted through the 2018 Shurgard listing.