Investor Pivots: Leaving Office for Self-Storage

In Houston, Silver Star Properties REIT, the Houston firm that has been known as a real estate firm focused on an office portfolio assembled by Al Hartman, is moving out of office buildings into self-storage properties.

In Silver Star is acquiring Southern Star Self, Storage company currently operates a portfolio of 9 properties, which together comprise 321,291 net rentable SF spread across 2,526 units.

In a press release, Silver Star Properties, formerly known as Hartman Short Term Income Properties XX, said its Executive Committee has “approved the repositioning plan to pivot the company’s assets into the self-storage asset class.”

The “pivot” away from office comes as the Houston office market navigates through a rough patch. Houston’s “availability rate” of office space is near 30 percent and the supply of sublease space has swollen to 8 million SF, CBRE reports.

The Silver Star/Hartman firm is selling some of its properties.

“The purchase of Southern Star Self-Storage underscores our commitment to repositioning the company’s assets into the self-storage asset class to maximize shareholder value. The firm inherits experienced self-storage operating capabilities and investment prowess through its Southern Star Self-Storage’s management team,” said Gerald Haddock, lead director of Silver Star Properties.

In In the 1990s, Haddock was president and Ceo of Fort Worth, based Crescent Real Estate. He has also been an executive in the Richard Rainwater organization.

The company said it has reached an agreement wit CEO Mark Torok. Torok signed a three-year employment agreement with the company, with the goal of creating liquidity for existing shareholders through listing the company on a public exchange.

Listing the Company on a Public Exchange

“I am honored to be leading, with the guidance of the Executive Committee, the repositioning pivot that we have been developing for several months with the primary goal to maximize shareholder value and improve liquidity for our investors,” Torok said, “With it, we will shift our predominantly out of favor office assets into a stable, recession-resilient, and growing subset of investment real estate. I am thrilled to take the company to new heights and deliver value to our shareholders through a public listing.”

In the 1980s, Houston investor Al Hartman founded the predecessor roots of Hartman Short Term Income Properties XX, which recently became Silver Star Properties.