Now the Airbnb-like startup with an online marketplace serving shippers, truckers and logistics companies has secured a partnership with ITS ConGlobal.
The rush to bring goods into the U.S. before higher tariffs go into effect has exacerbated an issue found in many port cities and inland logistics hubs around the country — a shortage of space to store trucks, trailers and containers.
A startup called SecūrSpace Inc. has created an online marketplace to address the issue and has announced a partnership with ITS ConGlobal to increase access to secure real estate across the country where shippers, truckers and logistics companies can store equipment.
Think of SecūrSpace as Airbnb for the trucking and logistics industry, says Lance Theobald (pictured above), the chief executive officer of the company, where instead of booking a room or house, customers find a place to park equipment.
For example, Theobald says companies using the SecūrSpace platform currently are storing more than 2,000 pieces of equipment in Southern California per day.
“This is equipment that otherwise would not have had a home and the shippers or truckers would have been stuck paying per diem at the rails or demurrage at the ports,” he explains.
Before creating SecūrSpace with his partners, Theobald was a sales executive at Direct ChassisLink and met with hundreds of different trucking companies, motor carriers, shippers, NVOCCs and 3PLs and heard frequently about the lack of real estate capacity for storing equipment. It is an issue not only around major population centers in port cities such as Los Angeles, Long Beach and New York, but also in the Midwest and the Southeast.
“I realized that the Airbnb shared economy model was a really good fit for solving this problem, because if you go out to your average trucking terminal, odds are they are going to have excess or slack real estate at various points in the year.”
Businesses now can in a matter of hours start offering to rent excess real estate that would otherwise not be utilized.
For example, ITS ConGlobal, runs a large national network of container depots at more than 120 locations in the U.S., Mexico and Costa Rica.
“Their facilities are custom made to handle containers, trailers and trucks — that’s their core business. SecūrSpace offers companies like ConGlobal and trucking companies an avenue to monetize that underutilized or slack space,” says Theobald.
“We are working with commercial real estate developers that have a vacant property that is going to be developed in one or two years. They have hired temporary security services and opened up dozens of acres in Southern California to meet the current demand.”
SecūrSpace and ConGlobal say the partnership they announced this week builds upon a successful collaboration that began in late 2017 in Los Angeles.
“Due to the rapid rise in e-commerce, demand for secure facilities in and near major cities has grown exponentially over the past decade. At the same time, industrial real estate inventory levels hover near all-time lows,” they said in a joint statement.
Weston LaBar, the chief executive officer of the Harbor Trucking Association, which represents drayage companies in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, says, “If you look at industrial real estate in Southern California, availability rates are less than one-half of 1 percent, which means if you have a growing demand for space, it’s unlikely that you’re going to be able to go out and get your own.”
At the same time, he says, “folks that have space may not always need to utilize 100 percent of it and so you need to be more creative with the ways that you enable people to conduct their business.” SecūrSpace has created an opportunity “where land owners can put land on the market daily in the form of container storage or truck parking and folks that don’t have the space but need it can consume it.”
Theobald says, “This issue has become more concerning with the rush to beat the current tariffs scheduled to take effect in March 2019. For companies in the transportation and supply chain industries, access to real estate near population centers is not only important, it’s mission critical to ensure they can accommodate and adapt to increasingly demanding consumer expectations around product delivery schedules.”
While the majority of the SecūrSpace’s business is in Southern California, Theobald says customers can find space to rent at around 300 locations in 22 states using SecūrSpace. These include ports and rail hubs in Chicago, New York/New Jersey, Boston, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, Atlanta and Charlotte, where SecūrSpace is headquartered. He expects the company will have space providers in 1,000 locations “well before the end of the year.”
Theobald says SecūrSpace can help companies with a variety of needs.
A company that needs, for example, to store 10 containers in Los Angeles for a day or two would be able to search for, book and pay for the space at the SecūrSpace website.
But companies may be looking for a longer-term commitment, have high-value cargo or have a special need such as a place to plug in a refrigerated container or trailer.
In that case, the company has a team of salespeople that can help customers find an appropriate location.
The cost of renting a space for a trailer or container varies widely depending on location and how long a commitment is involved, but Theobald says the daily cost ranges from about $15 to $30 a day. If a company is looking to rent space on a monthly basis, the cost can be $500 to $600 in areas around Los Angeles or New York and $100 to $300 in less expensive parts of the country, for example in the Southeast.
Most of the locations posted on SecūrSpace are fenced and guarded, but Theobald says the beauty of a location is in the eye of a beholder — sometimes a company may be just looking for a dirt lot where it can park an empty trailer.
“But as our name would imply, SecūrSpace, we do tend to try to find facilities that have 24/7 security,” he says.
There are a number of ways that companies can use off-dock storage yards. With warehouses vacancy rates below one half of one trailers or containers can be used for temporary storage. Companies moving can move containers off-dock so they don’t have to incur costly demurrage charges at marine terminals. For example, drayage companies can evacuate containers from marine terminal “peel-off” piles to nearby storage yards from which truckers can then move containers longer distances to their final destination.
Shippers and truckers may be able to find space they need on a seasonal basis, for example around peak season when large amounts of Christmas merchandise is arriving.
Theobald notes that there are large numbers of small trucking companies that want to expand. If they are entering a new city, for example, and don’t have the need for or the capital to buy or rent a large new facility, SecūrSpace gives the ability to acquire additional, secure space in small bites. He adds that the electronic logging device mandate and reduced hours of service requirements are requiring some trucking companies to rejigger routing and they may need to store equipment overnight in a secure yard.
LaBar says drivers “maybe haul for somebody in one area but now they have the opportunity to perhaps get parking closer to where they live, which may be useful for them. Or perhaps they have the ability to find parking at a cheaper rate if there is a parking fee that’s charged to them. For truck drivers or for small fleets that may not have yard space, this gives them the ability to find parking without having to go out and lease lots.”
SecūrSpace secures spots to store trailers, containers
