Track record of success developing profitable storage properties in Palm Springs, Kona and beyond.
David Gandolfo is the sole owner of Gando Properties, L.L.C. He established the company in 2000 with the purpose of developing and managing self-storage facilities. His primary market was the Palm Springs area where he had been visiting since 1991. He quickly discovered that the Palm Springs self-storage market was underserved and lacking air-conditioned and commercial size space. David also discovered that Palm Springs is a resort market, with an abundant of 2nd and 3rd time homeowners, snowbirds and timeshare owners.
He earned a degree in Marketing from Indiana University in 1990 and spent 12 years in the corporate world with GE, Whirlpool and York International, honing his skills in strategic planning, sales, marketing and management. He moved to Palm Springs from Chicago in 2001 with his wife Andrea and sons Tyler and Travis.
He is the developer and sole owner of Palm Springs Airport Self Storage, a 600+ unit facility, which opened in August 2004. The facility specializes in Air-Conditioned units, Warehouse Units and Wine Storage, the facility has recently introduced air-conditioned locker style units to the market. This facility has achieved over 90% occupancy for the last six years with annual gross sales over 1.4 million dollars. He has merged traditional and innovative methods to succeed in the Palm Springs Market while providing community support through such activities such as Elf Holiday Storage, storage for PAL rummage sales and contributions to the Tour de Palm Springs. David recently sold this property in December 2022 to Prime Storage for $22 million. He believes in Palm Springs and its future and served on the Board of Directors of the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce from 2012 – 2016 and is currently active in Rotary.
David is actively involved in other Self-Storage projects. He has entitled over 1,000,000 square feet of self-storage throughout California and Hawaii. He also has raised over $28 million from investors for these projects. He not only owns and develops but also manages his properties. He is currently co-owner of Great American Self Storage in Kailua-Kona Hawaii. When David took over this property in January 2011 it was operating under 28% occupancy with sales less than $280,000. Since then he has turned this facility into a huge success story through innovative marketing, TV campaigns and contributions to the community. The facility has been operating at over 90% occupancy for the last 6 years and has won West Hawaii’s Facility of the Year award five out of the last six years and has annual gross sales over $1,600,000.
With the continued success of the Kailua-Kona facility and the Palm Springs facility, David has expanded his portfolio by developing several new projects which are in various degrees of development and or construction. With the success and high occupancy of the two existing facilities in their respective markets David knew the time to expand was necessary. In Palm Springs, he and his partners completed Phase 1 in November 2020 with sales over $12 million and are currently under construction with Phase 2 at Monstore Garages, a 120,000- square foot RV and classic car condominium storage property. The second new property is Gene Autry Self Storage also in Palm Springs; it is a 100,000 sq. ft. Self -Storage facility with 13 small incubator units. It is currently under construction and will be completed by June 2023. The third new property is in the Kona market. David built a 83,000 sq.ft facility in Kona, achieved 92% occupancy in over 11 months and recently sold the property to Extras Space for $39 million.
David is also expanding to the other islands in Hawaii. In December 2019, he closed on a 3.8-acre parcel on Maui to develop a 116,000 sq. ft. state of the art self-storage facility with new innovations. The property will be introducing 10’ openings on the perimeter storage buildings to allow trucks with ladder racks access. It will also have 12’ wide units for boat and/or trailer parking, lights in all 900 storage units regardless of size and a limited number of units with plugs for power. This project is currently in plan check status with hope of pulling building permits by year end of 2023.
David is currently in negotiations on a 2.7 acre parcel in Hilo Hawaii. He has been wanting to expand to the east side of the island for quite some time. The timing couldn’t be more perfect with the current self-storage facilities in the market at or above 90% occupancy. The Hilo market is under served with larger commercial units and air-conditioned space. With Hilo being on the wet side of the island moisture and mold is a huge problem for storage customers. Air conditioned units solve this problem, plus with new technology and features this will be the premier facility in Hilo. The property is expected to total 75,000 sqft.
Other new locations are breaking ground or soon to start construction. In Fort Myers, Florida we are building a 100,000 sq.ft, 4 story all climate-controlled property and in Mooresville, NC we are currently building a 100,000 sq.ft., 3 story all climate-controlled facility with more projects in the Southeast pipeline.
