Facility and Management News

Absolute Goes Underground: New Partnership in Kansas City

April 12, 2022 in Facility and Management News

Copaken Brooks is partnering with Absolute Storage Management to provide professional self-storage management to their unique, underground self-storage facility, Smart Storage. The new management contract became effective on March 1st.

About Smart Storage, Kansas City

Smart Storage is conveniently located in Downtown Underground on West 31st Street between Southwest Trafficway and Southwest Boulevard. Thanks to its underground location, customers enjoy secure, eco-friendly storage units that remain dry and a temperate 72 degrees year-round. Smart Storage serves business and residential storage customers in the downtown corridor and surrounding neighborhoods of Rosedale, Volker, Midtown-Westport, Roanoke, and Hanover Place. Smart Storage is presently comprised of 596 storage units totaling 144,550 rentable square feet.

Downtown Underground comprises 1.2 million square feet. It offers self-storage, warehouse, light assembly and distribution, office meeting rooms, and business spaces in Kansas City’s premier underground location near I-35 and I-70 just south of downtown.

If you would like to speak to the local manager, please stop by the location at 1501 W. 31st Street, Kansas City, Missouri, or call Keena Masters at (816) 701-5057.

Street level entrance to Downtown Underground Kansas City, Missouri
Street-level entrance to Downtown Underground, Kansas City

History of Downtown Underground, Kansas City

Downtown Underground was developed by Lester Dean Sr. in the 1950s. Dean’s first business, Dean’s Army Surplus (later Dean Machinery Co.), sat on top of an abandoned mine, which Dean discovered during one of his routine walks of the property. Although filled with water at the time of discovery, Dean converted it into Kansas City’s first underground commercial real estate. Their first self-storage tenant was Hallmark Cards in 1958. When construction was completed in 1966, Dean celebrated with a Fred and Wilma Flinstone-themed grand opening in October of that year.

Lester Dean Sr. and his wife at the 1966 Flintstone-themed grand opening of Dean's Downtown Underground.
Lester Dean Sr. (right) and his wife (left) at the 1966 Flinstone-Themed Grand Opening Celebration

About Copaken Brooks

Copaken Brooks is a full-service commercial real estate firm headquartered in Kansas City and serving the Midwest. For 100 years, the company has maintained a national client base with a full suite of services including investment acquisition and sales, tenant representation and HQ relocations, property management, asset management, development, construction management, owner’s representation, and leasing (office, retail, medical, industrial and underground). Learn more at www.copaken-brooks.com.

About Absolute Storage Management

Absolute Storage Management (Absolute) is one of the largest private, third-party self-storage management companies in the United States. Founded in 2002, with headquarters in Memphis, TN and regional offices in Atlanta, GA; Charlotte, NC; Nashville, TN; and Jackson, MS, the company operates over 140 properties in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Contact Jasmin Jones at jasmin.jones@absolutemgmt.com

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