DXD Capital opened a 667-unit self-storage facility at 10 Davkim Lane on Nantucket, delivering 73,772 net rentable square feet
The 1.2-acre site includes 24 covered and climate-controlled parking spaces plus a two-unit residential duplex townhome
The project took roughly eight years from concept to completion, with construction running from July 2024 to a January 2026 Certificate of Occupancy
Every material and worker had to reach the island by ferry, requiring close coordination with local partners including Cape Cod Express and Park East Construction
DXD Capital has opened a 667-unit self-storage facility on Nantucket, Massachusetts, adding covered vehicle parking and a residential duplex townhome to an island long short on modern storage options. The facility, at 10 Davkim Lane, opened this past winter and is operated by SmartStop Asset Management. It spans 73,772 net rentable square feet on a 1.2-acre site that took roughly eight years to bring from concept to completion.
What the Facility Delivers
The building offers 667 self-storage units in a climate-controlled, keypad-secured, sprinkler-protected structure, with unit sizes ranging from small seasonal lockers to space large enough for the contents of a four- to five-room home. That range matters on an island where second homes sit empty for much of the year and residents often need somewhere to store belongings between seasons.
Beyond interior units, the facility adds ten covered parking spots and fourteen premium, climate-controlled, drive-up parking spaces of roughly 200 square feet each, complete with outlets for trickle chargers. Nantucket's classic car culture creates unusual demand for this kind of covered parking, since the island's historic design rules typically prevent homeowners from adding canopies or covered structures of their own.
A 1.2-acre footprint also made room for a newly built residential duplex townhome, two two-bedroom, 1.5-bath units that add to the island's constrained rental stock. Housing has been a persistent pressure point on Nantucket, particularly for year-round and working residents priced out of ownership, and the company frames the housing component as a modest but meaningful contribution to that inventory.
"This project is a testament to the incredible coordination between our team and our local partners, who were instrumental in overcoming the island's unique logistical hurdles."
— Scott Hughes, Managing Director of Construction at DXD Capital
Building on an Island With No Bridge
Nantucket sits 30 miles off the Massachusetts coast, and nothing reaches the island except by boat or plane. Every steel beam, shingle and finishing screw for the facility arrived by ferry, a constraint that shaped scheduling, budgeting and sequencing throughout the build. DXD Capital credits a partnership with regional freight operator Cape Cod Express as central to making the logistics work economically.
Labor costs on the island run well above mainland rates, and the construction season is compressed by weather and tourism cycles that limit when heavy work can happen. Park East Construction served as general contractor, carrying the project through a build that started in July 2024 and reached a Certificate of Occupancy in January 2026.
Clearing Nantucket's Historic Review
Permitting added its own layer of complexity. Nantucket's Historic District Commission governs the visual character of nearly every structure on the island and required multiple Certificates of Appropriateness before ground could be broken. Sash colors, roof colors and even proposed signage all went through commission review, a process that demanded months of coordination between DXD Capital, its local agent Emeritus, Ltd., and island officials.
The finished building reflects that scrutiny. Its architecture uses traditional saltbox-style roofs, cedar shingle siding and other details meant to echo the island's established aesthetic, an approach the company says was designed to set a standard for how self-storage facilities can fit into a historic setting rather than stand apart from it.
A Niche Sector With Growing Institutional Interest
Self-storage has drawn increasing attention from private equity and institutional investors over the past decade, largely because demand tends to hold up across economic cycles and operating costs are relatively low compared with other real estate asset classes. Markets with constrained land supply and strict development rules, like resort islands and dense urban areas, have become particular targets for developers who can absorb the added cost and time of navigating local approval processes. Nantucket's combination of high seasonal demand, limited buildable land and a housing shortage makes it an unusual but logical proving ground for that strategy, even if the economics of shipping every building material by ferry are far from typical.
DXD Capital's Broader Portfolio
DXD Capital describes itself as a data-driven real estate private equity firm focused solely on self-storage. Since its founding, the firm says it has invested in 35 ground-up developments plus one seven-facility portfolio acquisition across the United States, using proprietary analytics to identify markets for new facilities. The Nantucket project is now operated by SmartStop Asset Management, a separate firm that manages the facility on DXD's behalf.
The Nantucket facility marks a rare instance of self-storage development doubling as both practical infrastructure and a housing contribution on a supply-constrained island. Its eight-year timeline underscores how much patience and local coordination such projects demand outside the mainland. For DXD Capital, the completed building offers a test case for whether niche, highly regulated markets can still deliver on ground-up storage investment.
"Every piece of this facility, from structural steel to the last finishing screw, arrived on a ferry, one truck at a time."
