GREENFIELD — GiGi’s Self Storage has expanded its Greenfield footprint, recently acquiring three more facilities in the city.
The family-owned business has purchased the former Premier Self Storage at 105 Newton St., along with the All Purpose Storage facilities at 303 Wisdom Way and 78 Woodard Road. This brings the company’s number of Franklin County properties to five, as it also owns 289 Wells St. in Greenfield and a facility in Sunderland.
“We negotiated independently with the separate ownership groups of each facility, kind of had the deals under agreement, independent of each other,” said Tony Gleason, who owns GiGi’s Self Storage with his wife, Jenna Gleason, and her sister, Jackie Janulewicz. “We’re feeling really good about it. We obviously owned Wells Street. Working on the additional facilities allowed for some more scaled operations, where now we can have in-house staff in Greenfield every day to help support and service our customers.”
The business purchased Premier Self Storage at 105 Newton St. from Jim Boyle, who had opened the facility two years ago. The main structure that once stood at 105 Newton St. was built in 1855 and was originally called the Munson Baby Carriage Factory. The second building on the site was used to store lumber from a company across the street. Amos Rugg started the company in 1842, making wooden hay rakes out of a factory in Montague. After that factory burned down in 1889, the business relocated to 105 Newton St. It had been the location of Rugg Manufacturing Co., which in 2013 was sold to new owners after 124 years.
Tony Gleason said the Wisdom Way and Woodard Road properties were purchased from a company headquartered in Las Vegas. The owners recently put $250,000 into them via painting, capital improvements and fencing.
Janulewicz said a manager has been hired to oversee the four Greenfield locations.
“We’re really excited about having a friendly local face on site, and he’ll be able to help customers across all of the GiGi’s locations in Greenfield. So this will kind of be his home base,” she said at the Newton Street site. “And folks are welcome to come visit him here, or he can meet them at the other locations as well.”
Janulewicz mentioned that the business owns a total of 860 storage units in Greenfield, and about 2,100 across its brand. GiGi’s Self Storage operates 10 facilities, though the owners said that number will likely be close to 20 by the end of the year.
“I think it’s important to note that even though we’re expanding and we’re growing, we’re really committed to … our core purpose, which is remaining a family-owned business that’s local to the communities that we serve,” Jenna Gleason said. “That’s always kind of at the heart of everything that we do and every decision that we make.”
“GiGi” is her family’s nickname for her. Her twin nieces, Janulewicz’s daughters, suggested the name for the business before the first location opened in Easthampton.
More information about GiGi’s Self Storage is available at storewithgigi.com.
