Gila Ridge Storage

If you leave home, you lock the doors behind you. If you're planning an extended stay away from home, you may ask your neighbors to watch your property.

You may install a burglar alarm in you home. You may keep your valuables in a locked safe.

Cort Johnson believes that level of security should also apply to your overflow possessions that you keep in a rental storage unit.

He wants to provide customers that peace of mind at Gila Ridge Storage, the rental storage business he and his wife, Dolores, have owned and operated since August 2007.

Located at 2671 E. Gila Ridge Road, Gila Ridge Storage has been chosen as the area's Best Rental Storage Facility by respondents in the 2009 Yuma's Best, a poll by the Yuma Sun of readers' favorite businesses and services in the area.

The readers' choice reflects the business's commitment to ensuring the security of its customers' valuable possessions, said Johnson.

All of the storage facility's 575 rental units are secured by newly designed cylinder locks that are similar to the locks on vending machines. Unlike padlocks, the locks fit as an assembly in the locker doors where they can't be reached by burglars with cutting tools, he said.

"There's nothing to cut."

The locks are issued free to customers, Johnson said, adding that each is equipped with its own burglar alarm and at least one sprinkler head.

One hundred of the rental units are located in an air-conditioned building to protect items that are susceptible to the heat, he said.

Customers also must individually punch codes into a keypad at the main gate to get onto the premises, Johnson said, and a security camera system monitors the property.

Additionally, Gila Ridge employs resident managers, Keith and Kathy Camden, who remain on the premises "24/7," said Johnson.

The driveway aisles between storage units are 32 feet wide, allowing vehicles to pull alongside one another as customers come and go through the facility. "It's basically the size of a city street," said Johnson.

"Our belief is customer service. We bend over backwards to work with customers."

For more information, call 342-6070 or visit www.gilaridgestorage.com.