Industrial outdoor storage site plans

What an IOS site plan carries

Industrial outdoor storage (IOS) is a yard business. The site holds trucks, trailers, containers or equipment on a surfaced lot behind a screen, with a gated entry and usually a small office or flex building. A preliminary site plan for it decides how many stalls of each kind fit once the screen, the setbacks, the surface rule and the retention area have taken their share, and it records that count in a site data table a reviewer can check. Truck circulation and fire access for the wider class are set out on the industrial site plans page; this page is about the yard.

Recorded IOS programs show what the sheet has to hold:

The rows that carry the weight on an IOS site data table follow from those records:

• Stall counts by type, tractor-trailer against regular, with the stall module drawn to dimension, as in Henrico's 12 ft by 50 ft trailer spaces ^[1].
• Building area against any cap, as in Henrico's proffer caps on office space and on storage, service and repair space ^[1].
• Screen type and height on each frontage, and the height of what is stored behind it ^{[1, 2]}.
• Surface by area: concrete, asphalt, sealed recycled asphalt or an all-weather material ^{[7, 9, 10]}.
• Disturbed area, which sets the dust permit and the construction stormwater permit ^{[3, 11]}.
• Retention area, held as reserved land on the first sheet ^[12].

The Buckeye model project tests a 5 to 15 acre yard with a small office against the West Valley rules, and the Pinal County model project tests an outdoor storage yard against unincorporated Pinal County and Casa Grande. Both are model projects, used to show how published rules shape a yard layout.

Screens and storage height

Codes set the screen in different terms: a height, an opacity, a material, or a ceiling on what may be stored behind it.

Pinal County and Buckeye's overlay put a ceiling on wall height, while Casa Grande sets a floor; Buckeye's overlay and Goodyear also put a ceiling on what the yard may hold, because nothing stored may rise above the wall ^{[2, 15, 16, 17]}. Freeway frontage adds a test of its own. In a 2024 Maricopa County case near Buckeye, the City of Buckeye opposed the request and said it "prefers a solid wall be placed along the freeway to screen the property so those traveling along the freeway don't see the outdoor storage use" ^[12].

Surface: paved, sealed or all-weather

Surface rules run from concrete on every driven and stored surface to sealed recycled asphalt where a yard is not paved, and recorded yards mix materials by area.

The environmental case against bare ground is on the record. Henrico County staff, reviewing a yard for heavy equipment and trailers, wrote that unpaved storage lets engine leakage "be absorbed into the ground rather than captured" ^[1], and the rezoning was contested on screening, gravel and environmental grounds ^[1]. Howell adds a time limit that changes what a yard can be used for: a semi-trailer may not serve as storage for more than 7 consecutive days, except at freight or truck yards ^[13].

Lot and site standards

The site data table carries buffer area and wall length beside yard area, because both come straight out of the stall count.

Where the yard is allowed

In the codes below, IOS is an industrial-district use, and the approval path changes with the district.

Two of these codes are changing, which matters in diligence. Buckeye adopted the first phase of its Development Code update on February 20, 2024 and the second on October 21, 2025, so a yard plan there is drawn to the code as amended in October 2025 ^[23]. Pinal County stepped back from a full rewrite: a county notice of February 5, 2025 cancelled the draft under case PZ-C-004-24, and the code is now being updated in segments, with Hillside, Sign and Parking scheduled for 2026 ^[24].

Approval paths, and where an unsealed concept plan goes

The recorded paths for an IOS yard, and what the plan does at each:

Arizona's city path changed at the end of 2025. A.R.S. 9-500.49, as amended by HB 2447 (Laws 2025, Ch. 31), requires cities to authorize staff approval of site plans and plats without a public hearing, effective from and after December 31, 2025 ^[26]. The state seal rule is what lets the concept plan circulate before engineering: a registrant seals documents submitted to a regulatory or review body unless the document is marked "preliminary," "draft," or "not for construction" (A.A.C. R4-30-304(D)) ^[4]. The guide to where unsealed site plans are accepted sets that rule beside other states, and preliminary versus final site plans walks the handoff from concept to permit set.

Arizona rules for an IOS yard

Arizona is the state where the yard rules above sit under a documented state and county layer.

Outside Arizona, the rules on this page are city and county code, and the yard standard is set locally. Grand Prairie sits in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro, and the Texas page covers the state layer there; the Arizona combination page, industrial outdoor storage site plans in Arizona, and the Phoenix metro page carry the West Valley detail.

West Valley and Pinal County records

The Maricopa County records nearest Buckeye show the pattern a yard plan answers there:

• MCP2023010, Krikorian Warehouses. The site "is being used as an outdoor storage yard for shipping containers, semi-trucks, and trailers," and its warehouse was built without a construction permit after the owners bought the property in 2021, with the site operating under violation since 2022 ^[12]. Its position "within the 65 Ldn area" limited development to what Luke Air Force Base would approve ^[12]. Staff wrote that the rezoning "will resolve a zoning violation since outdoor storage use is not permitted," and the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval subject to conditions 'a' to 'i', 7-0, on October 24, 2024, over the City of Buckeye's opposition ^[12]. The case then went to a Board of Supervisors hearing on November 20, 2024 ^{[12, 22]}.
• Z2021137, Envirotech Group. A request to rezone about 11.7 acres at the southwest corner of Campbell Avenue and 355th Avenue from Rural-43 to IND-2 IUPD, heard September 22, 2022, with staff recommending approval with conditions, the City of Buckeye replying "No Concerns," no public comment for or against, and up to ten full-time employees expected ^[21]. It is a manufacturing case, so it shows the county's industrial path rather than a pure yard ^[21].
• Z2020027, Arizona Water Company. A 4.1-acre operations center proposed from Rural-43 to I-1 IUPD at 195th Avenue and Monte Vista Road, with its facilities yard "screened by the 8' high CMU wall"; the Commission voted 6-0 to recommend approval subject to conditions 'a' to 'h' ^{[35, 36]}.
• Pinal County, February 20, 2025. The Commission's record on that date runs both ways: 7-0 for PZ-016-24, a 2.84-acre GR to C-3 rezoning for RV and boat storage, and 5-2 against PZ-017-24, a 160-acre GR to I-3 solar rezoning, where the applicant had been asked to consider "a 6' CMU wall around the entire facility" ^[37]. Outside storage violations drew hearing officer fines of $750 a count in 2024 cases, or $2,250 for three counts ^[38].

What capital pays for

Capital treats IOS as its own class, and the constraint it prices is zoning. Newmark reported on September 8, 2025 that IOS rents had risen 123 percent since 2020 against 58 percent for bulk warehouse, with vacancy about half that of bulk warehouses, across an estimated 1.4 million acres in the U.S., and with Phoenix, Memphis and Atlanta at the top of the rent growth list ^[5]. The same report gives the developer's problem in one line: "well-located sites remain scarce due to zoning" ^[5].

The capital that followed, as reported:

• Alterra Property Group acquired 49 IOS properties in 22 states with a $189 million Blackstone Mortgage Trust loan in February 2025, the deal a broker called the point when "the floodgates opened" (GARP, secondary) ^[39].
• More than $900 million was committed to IOS in 2025, including Peakstone's $490 million for 51 assets, Realterm's $277 million for 13 properties and a $150 million Barings-Brennan plan (CRE Daily) ^[40].
• In Phoenix, Steel Peak paid $3.3 million for 2.18 acres with a 6,250 sq ft building at 2142 W. Van Buren St (press release, September 16, 2026) ^[41], and a Matthews release reports $8,500,000 for 234 E Mohave St ^[42].
• A Fort Myers brokerage reported in July 2025 that zoning, not land, is the main hurdle in Southwest Florida, with IOS "restricted to heavy industrial zones" and often requiring special approvals (PR Newswire, secondary) ^[43].

National, marketing-sourced bands from a 2025 RecNation blog give an order of magnitude only: IOS lease rates of $3,500 to $6,500 per acre per month, and land at $80,000 to $100,000+ per acre for urban infill, $50,000 to $80,000 suburban and $20,000 to $50,000 rural ^[44].

What the engineer of record adds

The preliminary plan sets the layout, the stall counts, the screen line and the site data table, and it is the exhibit a rezoning or use permit is heard on. Buckeye's rezoning records show what goes in with it: a narrative, the conceptual site plan exhibit, a legal description and exhibit sealed by an Arizona registrant, a citizen participation plan and report, site posting and mailed notices, with notices sent at least 15 days before the first public hearing ^{[25, 45]}. The engineer of record carries the rest. In unincorporated Maricopa County, detailed grading and drainage plans come with the building permit application, certified topography is required before building permit plans are submitted, and development in FEMA Zone A needs a floodplain use permit, with structures raised to a regulatory flood elevation the engineer determines ^[12]. The county's conditions say it plainly: "changes to the site layout may be necessitated by the final engineering design" ^[12]. In Buckeye, civil, grading, drainage and building plans are sealed by an Arizona-registered engineer or architect, while concept site plans at the zoning stage are not sealed ^[25]. The dust control plan and the SWPPP behind the ADEQ notice of intent go to their own preparers. Where a jurisdiction requires a sealed site plan, the preliminary plan is the base the engineer of record builds that set on.

For the views that carry a screening case, see flex and industrial rendering. The blog's IOS development guide covers the asset at more length, the IOS site plan guide walks the layout step by step, and related storage products have their own pages: RV and boat storage, boat storage, self storage and warehouses.