HARLINGEN — Just nine months after buying an old lumber yard, U-Haul is ready for a major expansion at its site at 1218 Ed Carey Drive.
The company paid $1.5 million for the old ProBuild lumber yard. Now the moving giant is planning a $900,000 renovation and expansion at the facility, which should be completed by December.
U-Haul will add 372 units of self-storage, with 224 of those being climate-controlled. In addition, the vehicle rental showroom and customer area will be renovated and expanded.
“Aside from the storage rooms, we plan to enlarge the existing showroom for the sale of moving supplies, towing accessories and even bike racks,” said Mark Reinitz, marketing company president for U-Haul in Corpus Christi.
“We also will be including a hitch bay to install hitches and wiring.”
The Ed Carey Drive location, unlike most of the U-Haul rental sites, is a company-owned hub instead of a franchise operation.
Reinitz said the new storage units will have two forms of security with controlled access into the facility and then customers will have their own lock.
Customers will have covered loading and unloading areas to access a mix of units ranging from 5-feet-by-5-feet to 10-feet-by-15-feet. Some of those will be ADA-accessible, Reinitz said.
“The Rio Grande Valley continues to grow and we are catching up,” he said. “We are at the farthest southern point of Texas, and the area has been underserved.
“I am from the Valley and when I was promoted to the marketing company president of Corpus Christi, it was my goal to grow our presence in the Valley,” he added.
Harlingen is U-Haul’s fourth company location in the Valley.
“Pharr was the first, then we purchased a small self-storage facility in Hidalgo, the old Burlington store on Boca Chica in Brownsville, and now the location in Harlingen,” Reinitz said.
