Keeping your business’ parking lot up and running is crucial for maintaining your bottom line. If customers can’t easily park on your property, they’ll be less likely to enter your building. Moreover, you’ll end up with disgruntled employees if their parking situation leaves something to be desired. By keeping up with commercial parking lot maintenance, you can avoid these potential problems for many years to come. However, even the best-maintained asphalt surfaces wear down over time. Eventually, your best course of action might be to invest in full-depth reconstruction (or reclamation) to restore your parking lot to its former glory. If you decide to go this route, however, you’ll have to do without a fully functional parking lot for a while — indeed, asphalt pavement construction can take several days, if not weeks, to complete.
With all this in mind, here are some ways to plan around your next full-depth reconstruction projection at your commercial lot.
How to Plan Reconstruction for a Commercial Parking Lot
Try to Schedule Services During Downtime
For significant renovations like full-depth reconstruction projects, strategic scheduling is paramount. Unless the project is seriously urgent, you’d be wise to wait until your facility will be temporarily shut down or less busy than usual to hire asphalt paving contractors. This way, you won’t have to worry about regular traffic in your parking lot, allowing contractors to take the necessary time on preparation, construction, resurfacing, and cleanup. If your business doesn’t have the luxury of an extended period of downtime, you’ll have to find other ways to ensure this project’s success without interfering too severely with customer and employee activity.
Post Proper Signage for Employees, Customers, and Guests
At minimum, you should let your people know what’s going on well in advance of the project. Posting clear signage near your parking lot a few weeks or days before reconstruction begins will give customers and employees a heads up so they’re not shocked or frustrated when they can’t park in your lot for a little while. It’s also worth sending out physical and digital memos to occupants to make sure everyone who normally parks in your commercial lot remains in the loop. Keeping your patrons and employees informed in this way will also make life easier for the parking lot contractors you hire, as they can focus more on the task at hand.
Offer Overflow Parking if Possible
Ideally, you’ll be able to arrange some way of allowing your people to park nearby without risk of getting towed or ticketed. Depending on the size and condition of your asphalt parking lot, you might still use a portion of it for parking while the other portion is rebuilt — this will limit the number of vehicles that can comfortably park in your lot, but it’s better than a complete closure. If your entire parking lot is under construction, you might try working out a deal with a nearby business to see if your employees can temporarily park in their area during the project (parking garages usually provide the most space). Street parking should be a last resort, and you might need to coordinate with the town or city to allow your people to park on the street without penalty for an agreed upon period of time.
Planning Your New Parking Lot Project from the Ground Up
A full-depth reconstruction project can be time-consuming and costly, but it will also yield long-term benefits when properly installed and maintained. Make sure your business is in good hands. For the most efficient processes and superior results in New England, look no further than Cassidy Paving. Call us today at 866-978-9788 for a free estimate on your next asphalt project.