“It was kind of a dreary area but it is getting cleaner now,” said the owner of Birch Creek Self Storage.

Birch opened his self-storage business last November, after turning five abandoned and condemned homes into an entrepreneurial opportunity.

“It took down a bunch of ugly looking homes and definitely beautified it,” he said.

Birch added that not only did his business make the area more attractive but also provides a service people did not have in the Stoney Creek and Winona area.

“A lot of the houses around here you can’t park a bicycle in the garage, they’re so small. With the lack of land this is really convenient for people.”

Martin Mazza, a sale representative at Royal Lepage and Birch’s realtor, said Birch Creek Self Storage was a definite improvement for the area and what was a deteriorating street.

“A blue collar, hard-working guy took five houses and an ugly streetscape and turned it into a really pretty streetscape.”

Mazza called the area an eyesore. “It was residential housing in a

developing industrial area,” he said, adding it was really not a neighborhood in which to raise a family.

However, Birch and Marianne Karibian, his girlfriend and business partner, said the business will bring back that sense of family into the community.

“It is going to be family-run,” said Karibian, adding that a family-run business creates a friendlier and more understanding setting.

“We just go that extra mile.”