Concurrent with the approval of the Cortlandt Town Center in the early 1990’s, a great deal of interest had been given to self storage as a principal land use. This use, which had started primarily in areas with many seasonal residents need storage like Florida, was largely untested in the New York market.

Town of Cortlandt officials wanted assurance that there was a market for the type of use in the area, and that several other storage facilities that were proposed or under construction in the northern Westchester areas would not siphon away the potential market. Self storage represented a particular challenge as businesses were not yet recorded statistically in proprietary or government databases, nor were local market nuances understood. The potential market for storage was widely seen to be only those that were living temporarily or seasonally in an area. This has since been seen to not be the case. Mr. Lynch reviewed the demographic, business and consumer, transportation, and zoning and built environments in northern Westchester to prepare a thoughtful, qualitative market analysis to justify investment in the self storage facility. Ultimately the market study was relied upon by Town officials as part of the approval of a special permit for the facility.