Joseph and Donna Krezdorn were the owners of Distinction Painting, Ltd. before getting into the storage industry. They specialized in new construction painting. Working for some of the largest builders in Berks County they built a reputation of high quality, low cost painting. In 1991 while painting in the Villages of Spring Ridge, Nestled between Van Reed, State Hill, Papermill and Broadcasting Roads just North-West of Wyomissing. One day while painting townhouses with no attic or basement in the spot where the Former Tulpehoken Dairy was located, Joe mentioned to Donna “Where do people put their stuff?”
Joe started doing research on Self Storage. This was before you could find everything you can think of on the Internet. After extensive research on Mini Storage, they both realized that it was going to be hard to finance without continuing to paint
Joe started doing research on Self Storage. This was before you could find everything you can think of on the Internet. After extensive research on Mini Storage, they both realized that it was going to be hard to finance without continuing to paint.
After many years and all but forgetting about Self Storage, in 1997 they came across an opportunity to paint small jobs at a local Pretzel Factory. After many paint jobs there; including installing the giant Pretzel Factory Logo on the Silo outside of the factory, the plant Manager asked them to bid on 30,000 square feet of ceiling damaged by a fire. The bid was placed and awarded to Distinction Painting, Ltd. Unfortunately, the job was to be completed over the factory Christmas shutdown. They had to scramble to hire Sub Contractors willing to work over this time. This was no small feat as the Factory job required about 14 contractors to complete the job between the morning of Saturday, December 20th and the Evening of Saturday, December 27th, before they were to restart the 200 foot long ovens, all while trying to keep the home builders happy, too. Keep in mind Christmas was Thursday, so no one worked that day. In fact the sub contractors all left at lunch, after telling Joe they would work the full day. They painted several new homes and the ceiling in that short period of time. To everyone’s amazement and much stress it was completed before the Factory workers came in to fire up the ovens for the following week. After payment and a well deserved vacation in February, Joe and Donna decided to use the profits to buy land and start a Self Storage Facility, although they could not imagine the scale and costs of such a project. The dream could finally be realized.
They hired a realtor and started looking for land. After several months they found the property DAK Self Storage is on today. Several things happened in this period of time. While walking the land with the realtor Joe asked about a sign on Route 61 (Centre Ave) because Dr Hottenstien, the Dentist across the street, had a sign near where the Hoss’s Restaurant now stands. The realtor looked at the Public sale sign in the yard of the house on Route 61 and Peach and said “Why don’t you buy that and put a sign there?” When Joe told Donna about this idea her reaction was, “You want to buy a house to put up asign? You are crazy.” Ok… I have toned down that quote to the PG version for this blog. Donna grew up with three brothers and worked with me in construction. Can you picture her exact response? During the auction for the house, as Joe was bidding and Donna was giving him dirty looks, the auctioneer was doing his chant said, “You gotta live with her!” The house was actually purchased before the 3 acres of vacant land at the South-West corner of Peach and First Streets. This land turned out to be part of the Ferdinand Thun Empire. They owned large chunks of land in Berks County by purchasing much farmland in the area; including the land where the Berkshire Mall now stands. This was funded through the profits of The Textile Knitting Mills in Berkshire Heights. If you drive over the Warren Street Bypass Bridge, just east of Reading, PA and look at the Railroad Bridge, looking to the right, you will notice a sign for the Thun Trail.
The land contract was contingent upon the Borough of Leesport giving approval for a Self Storage Facility. That’s a story in itself. After many Leesport Borough meetings and changes to the Engineers plan, they finally got approval. They also decided it was time for a trip to Las Vegas for a trade show hosted by ISS. This was a very informative trip, as they needed software to run the facility while they continued to work as Paint contractors. After returning they forged ahead with land development. Joe decided he would be the General Contractor on the job as he had done all of the leg work and pricing of the construction. The Bank would not approve a loan with that arrangement. The bank wanted all the liability issues to fall onto someone else. This fact alone added 10% to the total construction. They hired Tony Folino of Pennaco Excavating as the general contractor. He was very kind in the fact he only added 10% onto any bill that passed through his office. That covered the additional insurance he needed and his company’s’ time. This could have been much more had any other general contractor been hired. (Thanks Tony).
One Saturday morning while driving over to the land, Joe Donna and the girls were joking around trying to come up with names. Aardvark was brought up to be first in a now fading thing called the Yellow Pages. They decided on the name DAK, the initials of Donna, Amanda and Kelly.
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