U-Haul investing more than $10 million in major expansion of Dilworth facility

DILWORTH, Minn. - The metro-area’s U-Haul company has started an expansion of its Dilworth storage facilities that will top $10 million by the time it is completed.

The work started on the 1100 block of Center Avenue West includes rehabilitating the old Weivoda Carpet and Furniture Consignment buildings.

U-Haul Company of Fargo bought three parcels of land in the summer of 2022 for the expansion, next to the existing U-Haul facility at 50 County Road 9.

“We’re just starting out expansion. Most of the main structure of the site will see construction (in) early spring,” Shawn Odden, president of U-Haul Company of Fargo, said Monday, Feb. 13.

“It’s going to be quite a bit bigger than what you’re seeing today,” Odden said.

The expansion will include 1,100 self-storage units, he said.

The Weivoda building is being remodeled for self-storage use and should be completed by April.

“At U-Haul we prefer remodeling existing buildings, obviously, it’s a lot better for the environment,” Odden said.

Another 6,000-square-foot building is being turned into a showroom and sales room for the overall facility.

A three-story, 17,000-square-foot building going up now will be used to warehouse portable, mini-storage U-Box containers, Odden said. Work on the structure near U.S. Highway 10 should be done by early May, Odden said.

“That’s what they’re working on now, that really tall building,” Odden said.

The biggest part of the expansion is a three-story, state-of-the-art main building, with its 100,000-square-feet of all-interior storage rooms. Work on that building starts this spring when the ground is sufficiently thawed. That phase of construction is planned for completion around the Thanksgiving holiday.

“You’re going to be able to drive right into the building with your truck in the middle of winter and unload. You won’t have to be outside at all. There’s not that currently in the Moorhead-Dilworth area. We saw a great opportunity to expand into that market, and provide those customers with something a little closer to home rather than come into Fargo for it,” Odden said.

The expansion is a big investment.

While the budgets haven’t been finalized, the cost “will be north of” $10 million, Odden said.

Odden said that over the last decade, the company has built two new facilities in Fargo. It’s now time to give the east side of the Red River the same services.

“It’s a super exciting site for us,” Odden said. “It should really help us with growth and to better serve the customers in Moorhead, Dilworth and Glyndon,” Odden said.

The owners of Weivoda Carpet, Bill and Becky Norris, announced in fall 2021 that they had a buyer for their property - at the time they declined to name the company - and were selling off their inventory and retiring.

Dilworth City Administrator Peyton Mastera is happy that the rambling Weivoda showroom and warehouse didn’t remain empty for long.

“Anytime you have any building, a large commercial space that’s going to be vacated, from a city’s perspective, you’re always just concerned and worried because some of those can be difficult to fill at times,” Mastera said.

“We were very fortunate to have U-Haul move into the facility and be rehabilitating it like they are,” Mastera said. “We’ve been very pleased about that. They’ve been great, tremendous to work with thus far. We’re very excited. It’s a great addition to the Dilworth community.”

According to the Self Storage Almanac, self-storage is a $29 billion industry. As of January of this year, there were more than 52,200 self-storage facilities encompassing more than 2 billion square feet of space.

U-Haul is based in Phoenix.

Founded in 1945, the company has developed a network of more than 23,000 locations across all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces.

The company has about 186,000 trucks, 128,000 trailers and 46,000 towing devices. It is also the third-largest self-storage operator in North America, offering 913,000 rentable storage units and 78.1 million square feet of self-storage space at owned and managed facilities.