ODOT purchase, closure of Bend storage facility has customers scrambling to find new space

About 400 customers have until May before ODOT moves belongings to temporary holding storage

(Update: Adding video, comments from tenant Laura Anderson, ODOT Sr. Right of Way agent Jenny Adkins)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Customers of Lucky Horseshoe Storage at the north end of Bend will need to move their belongings out by early May, as ODOT has acquired and closed the facility.

Laura Anderson, NewsChannel 21's digital sales manager, is among those affected.

"It's a challenge here in Bend to find a storage unit. It has been for years," Anderson said Wednesday.

The storage facility at the corner of Highway 97 and Cooley Road was purchased by ODOT, unbeknownst to many tenants. ODOT acquired the property for the Highway 97-Cooley Road mid-term improvements highway project, part of the agency's long-planned realignment of the North Highway 97 corridor, now often clogged with backed-up traffic. Much of the property will be used to develop a bridge that will be going over Cooley road.

The problem is, the tenants had no idea.

ODOT Senior Right of Way Agent Jenny Adkins said, “We took possession at the end of December, but we didn’t have a tenant list. Normally, when we acquire property, we let all the tenants know."

Bend resident Jason Richburg has posted on the Nextdoor.com website, detailing his experience:

He said he rented storage space at the business for the past two years, but recently had trouble getting hold of anyone to process his payments. It wasn’t until he and his wife drove to the business that they learned ODOT had taken over the property, after the owner refused to sell it to ODOT and lost it through legal action.

All tenants with property locked in storage will need to make an appointment with ODOT to pick up their belongings. Tenants will have until May to move their items before ODOT moves it into a temporary holding warehouse, then eventually auctions it off. 

Anderson found out about the situation through Richburg's Nextdoor.com post.

Adkins said the previous owner also refused to provide ODOT with the list of the 400 tenants that store belongings there. So now, they're finding out the hard way.

This month, ODOT changed the locks.

"I just think it's such bad business for them not to share the renters information with ODOT," Anderson said. "I don't have anything in there that I need tomorrow. But you know, that may not be the case for some other people."

So far, two people have emptied their storage spaces. With word getting out, Adkins expects that number to rise quickly.

Adkins said, “They have 90 days, which puts it around May 5th. We’re doing everything we can to get people to give us a call so that we can help them out, finding a place to move," Adkins said.

Belongings will be temporarily held at an off-site storage space after the May deadline.

A public legal notice published in the paper said the property owners have 90 days to arrange to vacate the property, until May 3. It says access to the site is now by appointment only and to contact ODOT's Region 4 Right of Way office at 388-6198 for more information, including what relocation benefits and assistance may be available.