hen you hear Los Angeles and Paramount, you wouldn’t be faulted for thinking of the movie studio. But Paramount is also a city near LA, a unique place that has made a successful transformation from blighted suburb to attractive small town, with tree-lined streets, white picket fences, landscaped boulevards, and manicured lawns.
Public art is also important to the city, as it is home to dozens of outdoor sculptures that vary in style, from abstract shapes to lifelike figures. In 2020, the city even started Paramount Paints, a mural program designed to produce outdoor art to create “a lively sense of joy and color for those passing by.”
The facility, designed by MCG Architecture and constructed by DAI General Contracting in 13 months using a combination of MBCI metal panels and stucco, offers 75,000 rentable square feet with 857 climate-controlled units. OpenTech/Wisnet Wave were enlisted to take care of security, including video surveillance with gated electronic entry, while Janus International tackled doors and hallways. The facility is self- managed and uses StorEdge property management software.
Building the facility was not without its challenges. “Even for infill development, the site is small, just 0.73 acres, and we were able to overcome that challenge with a vertical, five-story building,” says Lentz. “To maximize our footprint and yield, we incorporated tuck-under parking as well as relocating and undergrounding much of the utility infrastructure.”
Management of the property is a “hybrid solution,” says Lentz. “One of the issues that storage facilities encounter is that the property manager will be out on site and prospective tenants have no one to talk with if they walk in or call. The same could happen with our site’s property manager. So, in the instance that the manager is not available to meet the customer, we’ve made it easy for people to scan a QR code from their phone, rent their storage unit, and move into the property immediately. They also have the peace of mind knowing there is a property manager there who’s available during regular business hours, and making sure the property is clean, well-maintained, and move-in ready.”
To create the mural, the city made several recommendations and allowed Go Store It to make the final decision. The company’s choice: Ms. Yellow, a self-taught, Mexican-American muralist and teaching artist from Carson, Calif. “Ms. Yellow’s work is so vibrant, and her ability to create compelling, large-scale pieces is unmatched,” says Lentz. “Her mural is not just an artistic statement; it’s a community benefit that enhances the aesthetic appeal of our facility and the city.”
But the Go Store It project offered a whole new type of canvas. “The size of it really attracted me,” she explains. “I loved thinking about the levels and the complexity of the entire thing. I find comfort in challenges that push me to go beyond what I already know.”
Ms. Yellow spent 23 days on the project, which required many early mornings. For the self-proclaimed night owl, that was one of her biggest challenges, but she remained the consummate professional. “They offered to work around my schedule if I chose to go in later, but the building was still under construction with workers arriving as early as 5 a.m. I knew that I would basically put them out and they’d have to stay much longer if I was in the way, so I worked around their schedule.”
There was also the issue of the California sun. “It got really hot, and I was sweating before any paint would hit the wall,” says Ms. Yellow. “The elevators weren’t operating at this point, so I was running up and down five flights of stairs multiple times every day. It was basically ‘leg day’ every single day!”
Who is Ms. Yellow? She’s Nuria Ortiz, and the birth of her artist alias is a two-part story. She fell in love with the color yellow in preschool. Initially unimpressed with it, she realized that by pressing down with force on a yellow crayon, she could get different color tones. This stuck with her, and by the time she was in high school, she was in need of an alter-ego. That’s when yellow became a moniker, not just a color.
“My best friend Candace and I had an art book, a bunch of drawings and ramblings. We wanted to give ourselves aliases in case anyone ever got hold of it, and one of our favorite movies was Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. All the characters in that movie were named after colors: Mr. Pink, Mr. White, Mr. Orange. So, we went with that. I became Ms. Yellow, and she became Ms. Green. Twenty-three years later, and I’m still using it!”
Today, she’s thrilled that her art can inspire people and connect communities. “I am Mexican American, and volunteering my time there to paint houses, schools, and facilitate art and mural workshops there makes me feel the most proud of what I do.”
During the pandemic, she teamed up with the Women’s Shelter of Long Beach, another proud moment. “During COVID, many people were forced to stay under the same roof with their abusers,” she explains. “Funding became limited, so raising money was vital to help victims in need, whether it be through resources or beds. I like that the Woman’s Shelter helps people whether you are a man, woman, child, non-binary, trans, etc. All kinds of folks can be in these types of situations, and I was able to raise over $5,000 for them. It gave me joy to be able to help in some way through my art.”