What self storage costs to build per square foot

By product, per gross square foot of building, as Terrapin publishes its national benchmarks. Covered boat and RV canopies are the least building per square foot; multistory climate-controlled space is the most. Terrapin publishes ranges, not the reasons a project lands within them; a firm price needs the survey, the soil report and a site plan.

For one product. Terrapin's regional benchmark for single-story climate-controlled storage in the Texas Triangle, which it defines as Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, is $80 to $110 per gross square foot. It shares the national range's $80 floor and tops out at $110 rather than $120.

SourceTerrapin Construction Group, self storage construction cost article, updated May 2026, read 2026-09-23.

Terrapin states that its per-square-foot figures are hard costs only and exclude land, soft costs, and furniture, fixtures and equipment. It says soft costs and furniture, fixtures and equipment typically add 25 to 40 percent to hard cost on ground-up projects, with soft costs alone at 15 to 22 percent, and lists the soft costs as design fees, permits and impact fees, financing costs, and insurance and bonding.

It also publishes a worked example: a 60,000 gross square foot single-story climate-controlled facility in a Sun Belt suburban market at $7.9 million to $11.7 million all in, of which $5.4 million to $7.2 million is hard cost, $0.9 million to $1.4 million soft cost, $0.4 million to $0.7 million fixtures and security, and $1.2 million to $2.4 million land. The example is theirs, for a market they describe in general terms; it is not a price for any site in these three regions.

Some of the soft costs are published fees, and they are worth budgeting by name. TDLR charges a $175 project filing fee for accessibility registration, plus plan review and inspection fees based on the estimated construction cost. The primary operator of a site disturbing five acres or more, or part of a common plan that will, files a stormwater Notice of Intent with TCEQ at $225 electronically. On the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, or in the contributing zone where five acres or more are disturbed or part of a larger common plan that could be, the TCEQ plan application for a commercial site runs from $3,000 to $10,000 by acreage. A city use permit, where one is needed, is on the zoning guide city by city.

SourcesTexas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Architectural Barriers Fee Schedule, read 2026-09-23; Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, TPDES Construction General Permit TXR150000 (2023), Part II.E.3 and Part IX, read 2026-09-23; Texas Administrative Code, 30 TAC 213, Sec. 213.14(a) Table 1 and Sec. 213.27(b) Table 2, read 2026-09-23.

The slab, the grading and the paving all depend on the land, and the land is different on every site. The USDA's description of the Comfort soil series, whose type location is near Boerne, puts hard limestone 10 to 20 inches down; the soil report for a particular site says what is under it. A firm price needs the survey, the soil report and a site plan, and a number given before those exist is a guess.