City Tile Expands with Purchase of Neighbouring Property

It’s official. There’s changes in the wind for City Tile.

City Tile owner Dominic Staniscia has purchased the adjoining land, site of Mostar Mini Storage, which will be renamed City Mini Storage to tie the two businesses together.

According to thestar.com, the condo boom, aging baby boomers, downsizing,

divorce, death, and changing tastes, have all contributed to a doubling in self-storage facilities across Canada over the past ten years.

There are 14 self storage facilities listed in Nanaimo alone, but Staniscia says stats and trends didn’t factor into his decision to buy the land, which backs onto his City Tile property.

“Not at all. We’ve been looking at the property for a few years. It made sense when we were ready to purchase it to expand our horizon. We want to change things up. We’ll have more land, more space, more opportunity to expand City Tile, and to expand the storage.”

They take possession February 1st.

“Absolutely. It’s exciting,” Staniscia, who started City Tile 15 years ago, answered quickly when asked if he’s looking forward to the new addition to the family. ”It’s another adventure.”

Staniscia has lived in Nanaimo 25 years. The 58-year-old moved to Nanaimo from Vancouver where he was born and raised, in 1992.

“I moved here to get away from the rat race. I thought it would be a great place to raise my family. I love to fish. I love the outdoors. I love the water… I love it here.”

“We’re really not sure what we’re going to do (with the property) yet. We have ideas. We just have to get in there and get our feet wet,” he said, then made the point “we’re going to spend some money in there and fix it up, make it look better — accommodate our customers a little better.

“We plan on moving the office of City Mini Storage… we’re going to change the way people enter the property. We plan on changing the entrance, installing an electronic gate, maybe paving the parking lot… once we get in there we’ll figure it all out… we don’t do anything half-assed.

“It’s not tiles, so there will definitely be a learning curve,” he said of the new venture, adding “there’s a real need for covered storage in Nanaimo for boats, R.V.’s, campers all that stuff. There’s nothing like that on the property right bow, but we’re hoping change that.

The bottom line he says, is that “we’re going to tie the two businesses together and make it all better. That’s what it’s all about.”

Being located in the heart of Nanaimo, right off the parkway, “it’s handy for a lot of people. I mean we get up to 200 people a day in our City Tile store so we’re hoping to capitalize on that.”

Staniscia currently employs a dozen people. He has two longtime employees who have been with him 14 and 11 years respectively.

Rose, his wife of 35 years, “is a big part of the business. And my three daughters are all involved in it as well, so it’s truly a family business.”