Full service plus storage in Waupaca

By James Card

U-Haul is in the process of finalizing the purchase of the old K-Mart store on Fulton Street.

The company’s plan is to turn the property into a personal storage facility and full-service U-Haul service center. The goal is to be open by April 1.

A retail space will be constructed where the pharmacy used to be. A new doorway will be cut into the wall and sliding doors will be installed, along with a bathroom.

Boxes, packing materials, hitches, wiring and moving supplies will be sold there. The former garden center will turned into a return and dispatch area.

The interior covers 80,000 square feet. All the shelving is gone and only a few check-out counters remain.

“The rest of it will be all state-of-the-art storage units. To get into the building you have to put in a code and that will let you in and will disarm your unit. Each unit in here will be individually alarmed. It adds a level of protection so we know who is in here and what they are doing. In a building this size we normally have 50 to 60 cameras going at one time,” said Ken Heitman, president of U-Haul operations in northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

The climate-controlled storage units will be built in two phases. The first phase will be 500 units and 300 for the second phase.

Units will range in size from 5-by-5 feet to 10-by-15 feet. All of them will have metal walls and 10-foot grated ceilings so there will be a gap between the storage unit ceiling and the original K-Mart ceiling. This will be to utilize the high-flow valve sprinkler system for fire protection.

Motion-sensor lighting will be installed that will illuminate the aisles.

The K-Mart back-stock and unloading area will also be part of the storage-unit footprint. An existing bathroom will be utilized and another bathroom will be built.

Approximately $4 million will be invested in the makeover.

Heitman said they do most of construction in-house but will work with local contractors and tradesmen for plumbing, electrical and HVAC work.

An estimated 8-10 employees will be hired to work there.

The space near the area of the main entrance will be transformed into a pull-up load/unload area. Down from that, three garage doors will be installed and tenants can open the door via key code. This will be a separate garage-like space for unloading or loading during the winter or bad weather.

The parking lot will have U-Haul trucks and trailers for rent and will be a full-service pick-up and drop-off site that is open every day of the year except Christmas day.

The parking lot will be re-striped and new curbs added.

“This will be cleaned up immensely. This will be a big deal. It’s amazing. When we come into a community, the number of people that use our services – it’s huge, not just for people moving, but for the everyday stuff,” said Heitman.