INNOVATIVE MIXED-USE SITE

National StorageMoorooka.

The best of design, construction, technology and customer experience on a mixed-use site. By Sophie Catsoulis, National Storage

Situated in the southern suburbs of Brisbane City, you’ll find National Storage’s brand-new Moorooka build on Ipswich Road near the BP Service Station and Moorooka Train Station. Open since December of last year, the centre offers a range of convenient and affordable self storage options with units featuring lighting, individually alarmed doors, and receipt and dispatch services. Focusing on both safety and convenience, the centre also boasts 24/7 access, driveway units, an undercover loading bay, and a goods lift.

As leaders in the innovation space, Bluetooth Smart Access is the most recent addition to National Storage’s tech arsenal. First implemented at their new build at Robina on the Gold Coast in 2020, this new technology takes the highly topical contact-free sales process to a whole other level. Their new Moorooka facility is the second centre to feature Bluetooth Smart Access. With the touch of a button, customers can access their units via keyless entry or digital key sharing, all available through an app.

Particularly suited to the business’ increasing commercial customer base, many of whom will be drawn to the Moorooka site due to its main road location, this technology enables a higher degree of much-desired outside operating hours usage. As the second cab off the rank in this new technology roll out, the closely aligned development and IT teams enjoyed added confidence in the efficiency of the technology stating their desire to continue to keep up with industry trends, and even discussing the possibility of retrofitting older centres within the National Storage portfolio.

When it comes to the site’s design approach, General Manager Development Nick Crang spoke of the many challenges the site presented. Ranging from difficult ground conditions and complex

“Their new Moorooka facility is the second centre to feature Bluetooth Smart Access. With the touch of a button, customers can access their units via keyless entry or digital key sharing, all available through an app.

demolition, to the site’s interface with Queensland Rail, state roads and the inclusion of a fuel station, the National Storage development team faced several parameters in their planning process.

“As a team we were able to leverage our previous mixeduse experience to counter some of the negative offsets of those preconditions,” Nick explains.

“We carried forward all of our successful recent tests with respect to access controls, the Bluetooth system, and all of our security and lift control learnings. Material selection was the same rationale, we carried forward our solar initiatives, we chose sustainable, long-lasting durable materials that have a low ongoing repair and maintenance component.”

When it comes to the inclusion of the fuel station, Nick says that despite the corresponding design limitations, its inclusion actually increased the viability of the entire project. “There’s an obvious, noncompeting synergy between some land uses such as this, and we’ve got strong partnerships, and that where it’s relevant, we will continue to look at those moving forward for our development projects,” he says.

The result is a lightweight, mixed-use design that utilises as much of the site as possible, and is empathetic to the catchment and wider area, while still being able to successfully capture prior learnings from recent successful flagships and accommodate an alternate use within the site.

“I’m happy with what we achieved there,” says Nick. “It’s the right development for the right location, and we’re expecting a very successful outcome”. l