Storage Container Rental and Sales in Saint Louis

Saint Louis sits between two rivers and on a lot of old floodplain, and that one fact decides more container problems than any spec sheet. A box set on low ground in the American Bottom, across the river in Granite City or East Saint Louis, behaves differently from the same box on a gravel pad in Maryland Heights. Ask where your site sits before you ask about size.

This page covers renting and buying shipping containers across the metro, on both sides of the Mississippi. You tell us the size, the grade, rent or buy, and the delivery address. Local providers quote it. You pick.

Who ends up renting a box here

Saint Louis is a rail town and a river town, so freight, warehousing and manufacturing fill the northern and eastern edges of the metro. Hazelwood and the airport corridor have distribution and aerospace suppliers that rent containers for tooling and spare parts, and for overflow when a warehouse is full. Granite City, with its steel history, has industrial yards where a box is just another piece of equipment.

Then there is construction. Hospital campuses around the Central West End, Washington University and Saint Louis University keep crews busy all year, and the redevelopment in the Cortex area and along Delmar has contractors who need a locked place for tools. Homeowners in Kirkwood and University City renovating a brick house from the 1920s rent a ten or twenty foot box for the furniture while the kitchen is torn out.

Retailers are the seasonal group. Stores in West County and Saint Charles rent a container in October and send it back in January. Schools and churches use them for lawn equipment and event gear. Craft brewers in the city use boxes the same way, for pallets of cans and bottles that will not fit in the cooler.

Rent or buy: the Saint Louis math

Inland metros pay a freight premium for used containers, because the box has to come off a ship on a coast and ride a train or truck to you. Saint Louis is better placed than most, since the rail yards around East Saint Louis move a great deal of intermodal freight and used boxes do show up here. Still, you will be quoted less for a box that has been sitting in a yard nearby than for one brought in from a port.

If you need the space for under a year, rent. If you will be using it for three years, buy, and buy a cargo-worthy or wind and watertight grade, not an as-is box. One-trip containers are worth it when appearance matters, like a box that sits in front of a storefront in Kirkwood or Webster Groves. For a back lot in Hazelwood, a used one does the job.

Ground, weather and what goes wrong

Saint Louis summers are humid and winters freeze and thaw all season. That combination is what produces container rain, the drip from the ceiling when warm damp air hits cold steel. If you are storing paper, upholstery or anything else that molds, you want vents, an insulated liner or a small dehumidifier. Do not skip it and then blame the provider in March.

Delivery needs a straight run roughly twice the length of the box, firm level ground and clear overhead space. Trees along older streets in Kirkwood and University City are a common reason a driver has to turn around. Soft ground after rain is the other one. A pad of gravel or a pair of timbers under the corners keeps the floor off wet soil and keeps the doors swinging true.

On the Illinois side, ask the provider whether they deliver to Belleville and Edwardsville without a separate trip charge. Some Missouri-based yards do, some treat the bridge as a zone line. You want that settled in the quote.

Permits and neighborhood rules

Cities and subdivisions in the metro handle containers differently. Many municipalities in Saint Louis County have their own zoning, and a box in a residential driveway may need a permit or be limited to a number of days. Subdivisions in Saint Charles County often add a homeowners association on top. Check with your city or your association before the truck is scheduled, because a removal order after delivery costs you a second trip.

On a construction site, the general contractor normally deals with the city, so ask them how the box was handled on the last job. If it will sit on a public street, you almost always need separate permission, and the city may take a week or more to give it.

What to ask a provider

Get the grade in writing, and get photos of the actual container before you buy used. Find out whether delivery and pickup are in the quote and what the truck needs for access. Then ask who pays if hail or a storm damages the box. Ask about the lock. A standard padlock hasp is the first thing a thief goes after, and a lock box that shrouds the shackle is a small add-on worth having on an unattended site.

A fair quote tells you the size, grade, delivery, the monthly or purchase amount, and the pickup terms. If any of those is missing, the number is not comparable to the others.

Plenty of people in this metro rent one box, forget it, and are still paying for it two years later. Put the end date on your calendar when it arrives.

Looking for a different city? Here are some nearby.

Other Saint Louis business topics.