Vault Motor Storage wins variance for Belmont boat storage facility

By DAVID CARKHUFF/THE LACONIA DAILY SUN

BELMONT — Vault Motor Storage LLC of Merrimack plans to use a model of state-of-the-art construction and technology when building a nearly 200,000-square-foot storage facility on Higgins Drive, the applicant said.

Charlie Morgan of Vault Motor Storage LLC said the footprint for the Belmont climate-controlled storage facility is 89,000 square feet with two floors.

"We store RVs and automobiles, high-end automobiles, boats. It's a first-class storage facility," Morgan said.

Morgan Storage provided vehicle storage at Manchester and Salem locations but found demand from customers for more space for auto storage, according to the company website (https://vaultmotorstorage.com/about/). In 2013, the company built its 110,000-square-foot Vault Motor Storage facility in Merrimack.

Seeking to build storage units in the Lakes Region, Morgan was refused twice in Laconia, but Morgan said, "Belmont is going to work with me."

In December, the Laconia Zoning Board of Adjustment voted down a proposal to build a heated indoor storage facility on Watson Road near its intersection with U.S. Route 3 at The Weirs; this request was the second such — both from Vault Storage — to fail to gain relief from a prohibition against indoor motor vehicle storage in the city's Commercial-Resort District. Earlier in 2015, Vault Storage had sought to build on the old Surfcoaster property at the corner of Endicott Street East (Route 11B) and White Oaks Road.

In Belmont, the Higgins Drive site is vacant property created in the 1980s when a business park was built, Belmont Town Planner Candace Daigle said. The lot previously was approved for Hangtime Sports, which pursued site plan approval and a special exception for an indoor skate park. The park was never built.

Boat storage is not allowed in the industrial zone, so Morgan approached the Zoning Board for a variance, which was granted at the board's Feb. 22 meeting. Daigle said Vault Motor Storage withdrew a request for outdoor covered storage and applied only for the indoor facility.

The company now will come to the Application Review Committee and then make site plan application at the Planning Board, she said.

Vault Motor Storage could be at the Application Review Committee as early as March 23 and the Planning Board as early as April 24.