“One of the reasons why there is tenant demand for this type of product is that by being in urban infill locations, they can be a lot closer to both their employment and customer base,” he said.

Nearly 90 per cent of CIP’s portfolio is on Australia’s east coast. More than a third is in Victoria, another third in NSW and the remaining 21 per cent in Queensland.

Centuria has reviewed its Melbourne portfolio for similar opportunities, with a preference for the city’s inner east and south-east, but a sharp rise in construction costs and lower rents in the southern city suggest it’s not the right moment, Nichols said.

“If there is limited supply in the next few years you will continue to see rental growth and that rental growth will obviously get to a point where multi-storey becomes feasible again,” he said.

Huggins said his multi-level warehouse was initially aimed at logistics firms, but the design pivoted when he realised there was an untapped market for secure self-storage targeting small to medium businesses, archives and individuals.

“It’s very popular in Europe [and] Asia and becoming more and more popular in the United States,” Huggins said.

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The five-level Keys Road Moorabbin building will have 56,168 square metres of net lettable or saleable floor space with tight security, a requirement for its target market of accountancy and law firms. “This thing is like a vault,” Huggins said. Access will be through fingerprint or voice security with armed guards on the property full-time, he added.

The 125-square-metre floor plates on offer can be amalgamated to make larger units. “We’ve tucked away, without agents, probably three levels of sales to underpin the construction,” Huggins said.

He expects construction to begin in February.