Public Storage Leaving California for Frisco, Texas

Public Storage is leaving Southern California for Frisco. The company has already expanded its corporate presence in North Texas ahead of this big announcement. >> That record production for Chevron in the Permian, which kind of leads me to uh you guys moving your headquarters to Texas. >> Oracle, Tesla, and now realtor.com. >> Public Storage is leaving California, moving its headquarters from Glendale to Frisco, Texas. >> The online real estate services company is relocating its headquarters from California to Austin. Musk says he’s moving Tesla’s headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin.

Public Storage has more than 5,000 employees nationwide. Public Storage operates thousands of self-storage units across the country. The company says the move is part of a broader restructuring, and this is the latest in a series of corporate relocations from California to Texas, including SpaceX, Tesla, and Chevron. In another not shocking development, Public Storage relocates headquarters from California to Texas. Public Storage will move its headquarters to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Yet another company that has said no to California’s extremely high cost of doing business, high taxes, just just the whole thing with California is going the wrong direction.

Texas, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, all picking up. You know, Georgia, North Carolina, tons of population, including people moving their corporate headquarters and their businesses entirely. Remember when we talked about In-N-Out Burger? They were just like, “Yeah, we’re gone. We’re leaving California, we’re leaving Oakland, we’re leaving San Francisco. We’re not closing down the stores, but our corporate headquarters are gone.” And they did close down Oakland because they were picking out bullets from the exterior walls of their restaurant there. Just some insanity in California and reasonable people going to Texas.

Let’s read the story. This story goes out to my friend Dan who owns the Savage Moose, Kenmore, Washington and Off the Rails sports uh pubs in in Bellevue. He’s got a storage unit. We’re going to be clearing it out on Sunday. Uh so much fun. I’ll be taking my big truck and loading the stuff bunch of stuff to the dump. That’s what I do on the weekends. Yeah, it’s good stuff. Standard and Poor’s 500 self-storage real estate investment trust said its headquarters will move to DFW metro area, Frisco, which is to the north. I was in Dallas and went through all that metro area cuz I started off in Oklahoma City, came south, went to the um went to the JFK Memorial, super cool, second time I’ve seen that, and then also looked at um Deep Ellum area, which is kind of their super vibrant the um it’s their entertainment district.

It’s their arts district. Had lunch there. And then tried to get out through DFW traffic. Traffic in Dallas-Fort Worth is horrific. It is terrible, especially going into downtown. It’s just it’s wild how Well, there’s 6 and 1/2 million million people in the greater metroplex and it shows. Like you’re like, “Oh my god, where am I? LA?” No, DFW. So, announcement comes alongside a CEO transition and a broader strategic overhaul branded PS4.0. Okay? Founded in California in ’72, Public Storage, it’s almost as old as I am. Public Storage has grown into the world’s largest owner of self-storage facilities.

Talking to my buddy Dan cuz we’re trying to figure out how many loads it’s going to take in my truck. I’ve got an 8-ft bed with a crew cab. It’s a Ford 350. It just hauls a lot of stuff. We’re trying to eyeball how much stuff. And we decided that most He hasn’t He hasn’t needed any of this stuff in his storage unit for like 2 years, something like that. I’ve got one in Maui that I haven’t seen in years. I got to clean it out, but it’s hard to go to cuz I got to grab some of my stuff there that was my son who’s no longer with us and it’s just one of those head trips to to make and go do that. Most people don’t need public storage.

They can throw all that crap away, right? I mean, it’s that stuff where you’re like, well, I I paid $500 for it. It’s probably worth 50 now, and I probably in reality have to give it away or have it on Facebook Marketplace for a year before somebody buys it for 10 bucks. Let’s put it in a storage unit for 100, 200 a month, and we’ll just store it there for years and years and years. Cuz when you go with people to their storage unit, oftentimes they don’t need that stuff. Just Yeah, and we’re going to take it all to the dumper. Just give it away. Public Storage growing into the world’s largest owner self-storage facility, 3,500 properties across 40 states.

It’s huge now, huge. Holding a sizable stake in East in European storage operator. The location marks a significant shift for a company long associated with California business community. How many businesses have we talked about right here in News for Reasonable People? Companies moving from California or at least their headquarters California to Texas. And it’s because it’s a pro-business market there. Dallas has always been a go-go, you know, you got venture capital, you got financing, you got guys that want to put together deals. Dallas has always been that city, right? And it’s gotten expensive.

I looked at some of the homes, you know, online. Dallas is expensive now. Fort Worth, not as bad, still affordable, but way more expensive than it used to be. And that’s because all of these companies are going to Texas, and you’re typically going to go to Austin if you’re a tech company. You’re going to go if you’re a finance company, you’re going to go to Dallas-Fort Worth. So many companies are moving to DFW in finance because they’re trying to push out of New York and its tax issues to Texas because they know, well, at least at the state level, you’ve got strong leadership. You’ve got conservative leadership.

And that’s what it takes to run a good business environment. You can’t have these whacked-out Democrat nut jobs, the the far-left nut jobs. You can have a Democrat moderate, whatever that is, but that’s essentially just a weak Republican, right? Things have shifted so far left that folks that who are moderate are basically Republicans. They just used to be a Democrat, and they can’t bring themselves to think of themselves as a Republican, but they are. They’re at least conservative. They’ll they’ll they’ll give it up to you. Yep, I’m fiscally conservative, but I’m socially liberal. Like, yeah, you’re a weak Republican.

That’s all you are. You know what I mean? I mean, it’s it’s funny to watch. And I’ve got plenty of friends that fall in that boat. I’m a I’m a I’m a lifelong Democrat. No, you’re not. You’re just lying to yourself because you can’t bring yourself to admit that your party is going down the tubes. Tom Boyle will take over as CEO on April 1st, succeeding Joe Russell, who’s retiring after a decade in the role. The same time, the board will install Shank Mitra, CEO of Welltower, as non-executive chairman. Leadership changes are part of what the company calls its fourth era, transition designed to accelerate earnings growth.

All right, we got earnings growth, we got expand margins, and deliver stronger long-term shareholder returns. They’re not going to do that in California. California is a no-go. Unless you’ve got to be on the West Coast, and unless you’ve got a stronghold already in California, you’re not there because of taxation, high cost of doing business, high cost of gasoline. Oh, and that gasoline is about to get way more expensive. There’s some things on the horizon that I’m not at liberty to discuss, but they are a-comin’. Even just a mention of some of the things coming, you’d be like, “Oh. Gas, 12 bucks, 15 bucks a gallon.

If you can get it. For Texas, move underscores the state’s continued success in attracting high-profile headquarter relocations. Dallas area offers no state income tax. Yep. Comparatively low operating costs. Yep. And a deep talent pool. And it has been pushing itself as a business environment. Meanwhile, New York, with Mom Downey, just it just pushing people away. Pushing billionaires away. Just, “Ah, we’re going to tax you all.” California, same thing. Washington state, same thing. Millionaire tax, payroll tax. Hey, bring it on. We’re going to push business out. Oregon, already extremely high business tax.

You you can’t do business there. And until you get rid of some of that and become more competitive, you’re going to continually lose population to a state like Texas. Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, I mean, Florida. They’re they’re all just bringing in population. California, not so much. Illinois, not so much. You know what I mean? Massachusetts, not so much. New Jersey, not so much. New York, not so much. They’re all bleeding out population and they’re going to those states that are red because people can’t afford to live there. People can’t afford to run their businesses. People aren’t going to get taxed 10 ways from Sunday.

I mean, that makes sense. It’s just It’s It’s like how many more of these companies do we have to see before the Democrats go, “You know what? We’ve got to make some major changes here cuz otherwise this is game over.” Cuz we’re in the third quarter and the Democrats are down by 35. You know what I mean? All right, let’s play a fourth quarter. Let’s just see how that goes cuz this population shift is massive. Massive. And that’s why you’ve got the whole ICE thing. That’s why you had the whole run 20 million criminal illegals into the country and we’ll just wait for another Democrat president to become president and we’ll get them all, you know, their citizenship and then they can vote for us.

I mean, that would work but now we got ICE just deporting left and right, left and right. With 2.2 million self-deportations so far this year. >> [sighs] >> Numbers are crazy. Well, Public Storage did not explicitly cite tax or regulatory reasons for the relocation because they don’t have to. It highlighted the region’s depth of talent and innovation as strategic advantages. I mean, it just goes without saying cuz California has absolutely shot itself in the foot with massive taxation, massive over-regulation, and basically pushing big business out of its state. Look at Chevron.

Look at the refineries. Valero spending a billion dollars to shut down its Benicia refinery because it doesn’t make sense to operate business in California. California is so restrictive. It’s so terrible to do business in. They’re getting fined left and right for basically running their business and they’re saying, “No, we’re out.” Chevron taking their headquarters to to Houston. We’re out, guys. We’re out. This is This is where our oil headquarters are. You guys aren’t really doing much oil business in California and you’re about to do a bunch less. So, we’re out. We’re We’re moving to Houston.

Under the company’s PS 4.0, it sounds like uh PlayStation, doesn’t it? Public Storage is leaning into digital tools, data science, and artificial intelligence to reshape how it prices units. There’s only so much you can do with Public Storage, right? But, it’s a business. It’s a widget business. All right, we got a 10 by 20. It goes for $108 a month. Give you the first month for free. Sign a contract, 14 months. Got to love it. Markets to customers and manages its portfolio. Executive say consumers increasingly expect fast, seamless digital experiences even in traditional brick-and-mortar sectors like self-storage.

I rented a public storage unit. I had to rent a um public storage unit when I I don’t think we have anything else here. Yeah, we don’t really care. Um I did a a big remodel on the house that I’m currently in and I decided, okay, that this I I can’t live in just one room cuz the kitchen’s going to get absolutely torn apart. Bathroom’s going to get torn apart. So, I had to work out all right, I got to put all my stuff in storage. I used Public Storage and it was during the pandemic and it was one of those deals where it was a no-contact uh renting of the unit. Meaning, I’d never really met anybody and you know, I got my code online.

I got my access and bunch of stuff and I I paid with a debit card and away I went. It was pretty slick. I was super happy because I was envisioning, you know, that meet up with the shady guy who runs the storage facility cuz they’re always shady. This one it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t terrible. It you know, you got the little office person was there. I had very little contact with them. And it was fine. You know, the code always worked for the gate and did this number and it was just down the road here but public storage. It’s one of those those companies you can kind of count on. It’s interesting how much the prices change from like one location to another just you know, miles apart.

It is some can be really expensive others are just like that that’s weird. It’s not going to be too long before we’re we’re just going to have a dearth of corporation or or corporate headquarters in California. California has done such an amazing job of just pushing them out. Left, right, and center. Public storage being the most recent. Expect to see more and more companies leave as California has to raise its taxes for its unbridled spending and it’s got a constriction of its population and businesses leaving. That’s going to leave that those budget deficits and those are just going to become wider and wider and more businesses will leave.

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