Climate-controlled or drive-up self storage

A drive-up building is a long single-story steel building divided by interior partitions into units, each with its own roll-up door onto the drive aisle. It needs no conditioned space, no corridors and no stairs, and every unit needs its own stretch of pavement in front of it.

A climate-controlled building wraps the units in an insulated, sealed envelope with heating and cooling, and reaches them from interior corridors behind one or a few entrances. It can go up several stories on a smaller footprint, and it carries more building per rentable square foot: the envelope, the mechanical systems, the corridors and, above one floor, the stairs and a lift.

On Terrapin Construction Group's May 2026 national benchmarks, single-story drive-up runs $55 to $85 per gross square foot, single-story climate-controlled $80 to $120, and multistory climate-controlled $105 to $170, all hard cost only. For single-story climate-controlled in the Texas Triangle, which includes Austin and San Antonio, Terrapin publishes $80 to $110.

Some codes read for this site decide the product in commercial districts. Where a code limits a commercial district to enclosed, interior-hallway storage, a drive-up row is not an option on that land, however the budget compares.

Round Rock (Williamson County)

Round Rock Section 2-91(jj) allows only multi-story, interior-access self-service storage in C-1, with no exterior roll-up unit doors. Units are storage only, site lighting cannot glare onto adjacent residential lots, each unit gets at most one 20-amp, 110-volt circuit, and a caretaker residence is allowed only in LI and I. LI and I facilities on a designated arterial need a fully landscaped street yard at least 25 feet deep with no parking, masonry walls or fences facing the street, full enclosure, and any RV, boat or trailer storage kept out of the street yard behind a building wall or eight-foot fence.

SourceCity of Round Rock Code of Ordinances, Sec. 2-91 (Supplementary use standards), subsection (jj) Self-service storage, read 2026-09-23.

Georgetown (Williamson County)

Georgetown's UDC Section 5.04.020.Q sets standards for indoor and outdoor self storage. Facilities are storage only (an accessory leasing office, accessory retail and one security residence allowed), indoor facilities must operate fully inside a building, and indoor facilities in C-1 must be climate controlled and reached only from shared interior hallways. Bay doors cannot face a public street unless set back at least 40 feet, gated sites need at least 60 feet of driveway before the gate, chain-link fencing is barred from front and street setbacks, and outdoor storage needs paving, no wrecked or inoperable vehicles, and an eight-foot masonry screening wall along any public right-of-way.

SourceCity of Georgetown Unified Development Code, Section 5.04.020 (Commercial Use Limitations), subsection Q, read 2026-09-23.

Marble Falls (Burnet County)

In GC General Commercial, Marble Falls requires self storage to be conducted entirely inside an enclosed building, with every unit reached from an interior hallway, a 30-foot height maximum, and a six-foot masonry privacy fence enclosing the self-storage area (office and customer parking excepted). In IN General Industrial, outdoor storage areas must be screened from the street by a masonry wall or fence at least eight feet tall, must comply with Section 4.6.5, cannot sit in a required setback or required parking, and cannot hold wrecked or inoperable vehicles. In both districts, a facility adjacent to a major arterial must be set back at least 150 feet from its right-of-way, and unit doors cannot be visible from public rights-of-way or residentially zoned or used property.

SourceCity of Marble Falls, Code of Ordinances, Appendix B Development Code, Section 3.2.1 Restricted and Conditional Uses, Table 3.2.1.E Industrial Restricted and Conditional Use Standards, read 2026-09-23.

Land cost and the code decide much of it. In a commercial district that allows only interior-access storage, a climate-controlled building is the only way to put storage on the land. Where land is cheaper and the code allows it, drive-up rows spread out at a lower published cost per square foot. The two can share a site, with a climate-controlled building on the frontage and drive-up rows behind it. The feasibility study is where the market side of that question is answered for your site.