On an Island surrounded by boats, splitting a life between being on water and being on land is less seamless than one might think. Plenty lug their belongings to and from the shores – and the marina is often disconnected from residential land. But developer Scott Davies of Cube Project Management Ltd. saw an opportunity to make boaters' lives easier, part of a visionary project he began a few years earlier to restore Sidney's Van Isle Marina area at 2270 Harbour Rd. For Greater Victoria, it was surprisingly a novel idea, not yet implemented: premium self-storage just steps from the marina. "We had a feasibility study done on the business prior to getting into it, and we learned from that that nobody actually offers self-storage with a marine twist. It's mainly just self-storage. "It's such a no-brainer idea. It's unique. It's a first-class facility." Harbour Haven Self Storage offers 200 climate-controlled lockers and over 10,000 square feet of storage, with video surveillance, an alarm system and most importantly, a convenient location. Peninsula News Review confirmed that there are no storage facilities like it in Greater Victoria accessible via a marina. In the Sidney area, Davies estimates there are at least eight marinas, translating to plenty of potential customers. Now, boaters have a centrally located spot for their marine gear, sleeping bags, paddle boards, fishing rods, and other gear they don't necessarily want to store on their boats. Once they have a locker, all they need to do is pull up and unload. So far, everyone Davies has spoken to "seems to love it," he said. That goes in tandem with the rest of the development, which includes new residences and four commercial units in what was a "derelict" area after the Blue Peter Pub burned down in 2011. "They've come up and said how happy they are to see a nice new development in the area. And just from a little bit of signage, we've got a slew of people on the sign-up sheet, and we've just welcomed the first few guests. We're welcoming lots more as we speak. harbourhouse3 [https://www.bpmcdn.com/f/files/peninsula/2025-july/harbourhouse3.jpg;w=960] Two $3 million residential homes are part of the new development at 2270 Harbour Rd. Jacob McNeil/Platinum Creative A lot of thought was put into the development and the storage facility. Davies travelled far and wide to do market research. "We went to self-storage conventions in Las Vegas, Toronto, and Vancouver," he said. There, his team learned that the two most popular storage locker sizes are 5'x5' and 5'x10' with a 9-foot ceiling. The majority of Harbour Haven lockers are those sizes, though they range from 5'x5' ($150/a month) to 10'x9' ($516/a month). To get a locker, boaters can apply via sidneystorage.ca [http://sidneystorage.ca]. With Van Isle Marina right there, Davies said he has a feeling it's going to get full "pretty quick". The new development's buzz and advantageous location will only help. "There are other storage facilities in Greater Victoria, but they're sort of in the middle of nowhere. We're conveniently close to downtown Sidney and in a prime 10 out of 10 location. "There was so much potential with that property," Davies added. "It was nice to breathe some new life into that area of town."
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