TractIQ and design-build firm ARCO/Murray released on September 23, 2026, submitted construction costs from more than 150 completed self-storage projects across 27 states, representing over $1.8 billion of delivered storage, per TractIQ's Episode 5 webinar page. The dataset is built from actual contract submissions, not broker estimates or 2023-era rules of thumb.
For a sector debating whether 2026 is stabilization or a slower bleed, replacement cost is the hinge. Every cap-rate conversation, development loan, and buy-versus-build memo depends on what it would cost to replicate today's product on today's schedule.
Why Is Actual Construction Cost Data Missing from Self-Storage Models?
TractIQ's pre-release copy states the problem plainly: ask five industry participants what a Class A build costs per square foot and you get five different numbers, most of them years old and none tied to a signed contract.
That gap matters because replacement cost sits underneath appraisals, underwriting, lending, and every buy-versus-build decision, per TractIQ. When national completions are projected near 53 million square feet in 2026, down sharply from the prior decade's average, the remaining projects that still break ground are the ones whose economics cleared a higher bar. Guessing their cost structure from memory is how buyers misprice competitive threat.
The ARCO/Murray contribution is scale. A single national builder opening 150-plus historic completions creates comparables by geography (Dallas versus Denver versus tertiary Ohio), by project size (60,000 square feet versus 100,000 square feet), and by cost stack (vertical versus hard costs). Each row carries confirmed square footage so cost per foot is not inflated by sloppy denominators.
What Fields Does the September 2026 Dataset Include?
TractIQ listed five core elements ahead of the September 23, 2026 release:
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Submitted costs on completed projects | Contract truth, not pro forma |
| Actual duration versus scheduled duration | Schedule risk priced into lender reserves |
| Vertical versus hard cost split | Explains why two identical-looking boxes price differently |
| Confirmed square footage | Stops bad cost-per-foot math |
| Project scale bands | Lets users match comps to their own program size |
Those fields directly attack the pain DXD Capital's lender survey described earlier in 2026: 41.2% of lenders flagged construction cost concerns, and borrowers struggle to underwrite achievable rents when street rates move faster than feasibility models update.
Who Built the Panel and What Did They Bring?
TractIQ CEO Noah Starr hosted the September 23, 2026 session. Guests included Eric Fleps, principal at ARCO/Murray; Rachel Parham, president of Noah's Ark Development; and Danny Cunningham, senior managing director of investments at Marcus & Millichap.
The developer and broker voices matter. Fleps represents the contractor side that signs guaranteed maximum prices. Parham represents sponsors still trying to match product to local rent curves. Cunningham's team markets live development listings, so the webinar promised a live walkthrough of an interactive dashboard plus Cunningham's current Marcus & Millichap development offering.
TractIQ already sits in institutional workflows. MyPlace Self Storage and Nuveen appear among disclosed TractIQ users, and the platform's street-rate analytics fed July 2026 reporting on 6.7% advertised rate growth. Adding contract-backed cost data moves TractIQ closer to a single underwriting pane instead of a rate-only lens.
How Should Buyers Use the Data in Late 2026?
Stress-test feasibility rent. Divide all-in development cost by required yield on cost. If feasibility rent sits above achievable street rates in a market where advertised rents were down 1.6% year over year in July 2026, per Scotsman Guide citing Yardi Matrix, new supply in that MSA is probably stalled regardless of what a 2023 pro forma claimed.
Separate tariff noise from local labor. Steel tariff impacts hit PEMB-heavy self-storage harder than other commercial types. A national completion dataset helps you see whether cost inflation is universal or concentrated in specific regions and vintages.
Pair cost data with entitlement risk. Municipal pauses from Yonkers to Elk Grove shrink the pipeline mechanically. Cost transparency explains which entitled sites still make financial sense if they ever get built.
Feed AI underwriting carefully. Rate runway metrics only work when cost inputs are current. Feeding stale square-foot assumptions into an AI model faster does not make the output more accurate; it makes wrong answers arrive sooner.
What Does ARCO/Murray's Participation Signal About the Builder Side?
Design-build firms benefit when sponsors underwrite realistically. Overly optimistic cost assumptions produce projects that stall in equity raises or fail lender inspections. Publishing historic completions through TractIQ is a bet that more transparent underwriting expands the addressable market for professional builders, not shrinks it.
With first-half 2026 completions at the lowest first-half volume since 2014, per Marcus & Millichap's September outlook, the survivors are operators and sponsors who can still clear yield spreads above a 6.59% average sector cap rate against a 4.76% ten-year Treasury in late August 2026. Knowing what peers actually spent to deliver rentable square feet is how you judge whether your market's next box is three years away or never coming.
The Numbers Worth Writing Down
- Release date: September 23, 2026 (Episode 5, 1:00 PM CT)
- Projects in dataset: 150+ completed self-storage builds
- States covered: 27
- Aggregate built value represented: $1.8 billion+
- Cost type: Submitted contract costs, not estimates
- Splits provided: Vertical versus hard; schedule actual versus planned
- Panel: Noah Starr (TractIQ), Eric Fleps (ARCO/Murray), Rachel Parham (Noah's Ark Development), Danny Cunningham (Marcus & Millichap)
Cost Truth Is the New Competitive Moat
TractIQ did not launch another generic market report. It attached contract-backed completion data to the same platform institutions already use for street rates and CMBS analytics.
In a year when supply growth is slowing but advertised rents are still negative year over year nationally, the operators and buyers who know replacement cost win negotiations. Everyone else is still arguing from memory. Equity investors are making parallel bets: Baron Capital re-initiated Public Storage in 2026 while MyPlace and Nuveen closed on a 523-unit Phoenix MSA portfolio the same week.
Sources
- TractIQ Self Storage Webinar, Episode 5, TractIQ, September 23, 2026
- U.S. Self-Storage Outlook 2026, Your CAIO
- Self-Storage Sector Stabilizes Q2 2026 Scotsman Report, Your CAIO
- Self-Storage Steel Tariff Construction Cost 2026, Your CAIO