Podcast Guest
Robert Madsen
President, U-Lock Mini Storage & the Canadian Self Storage Association
Robert Madsen is the president of U-Lock Mini Storage and president of the Canadian Self Storage Association (CSSA). The Madsen family are pioneers of self-storage in Canada — they opened their first facility in 1978 in Vancouver's Yaletown, converting an old six-storey brick warehouse — and today own and operate a number of U-Lock facilities across the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, with more than 500,000 square feet of rentable space.
Robert grew up in the business, spent time running airside operations at YVR, and returned to the family company in 2001. As president of the CSSA, he advocates for the whole industry — better data, fairer tax treatment (including reclassifying storage from a "passive" to an "active" business), and stronger lien laws.
On the Canadian Private Real Estate Podcast, Robert joined host Justin Smith to discuss what makes self-storage a two-sided business-and-real-estate investment, the supply-demand metrics that actually matter, why rent-up can take far longer than pro formas assume, unit mix, and how AI is changing how a private operator competes with the big REITs.