Parking Garage Upkeep and Safety

As a property manager, it is just as important to tend to your parking garage safety and maintenance as it is to care for the rest of your building. See what steps you can take to make your parking garage a pleasant place for building tenants.

Your parking garage’s maintenance is every bit as important as the rest of your building’s. However its upkeep and safety might not come as naturally to you as some of your other property management responsibilities. That is no reason to ignore it. Below are a few essential measures to take regarding your parking garage’s well being:

Pay attention to the way it looks

Your garage is a reflection of the rest of your building and therefore you should ensure that it reflects your building’s aesthetics as well for the purpose of a consistent look on your property. Not only should you perform regular updates on your garage’s interior, you should also pay attention to the garage’s exterior. Many building owners tend to design their parking garage exterior in a way that complements its surroundings, whether it be through structure and surrounding buildings’ decorative concrete, structures, landscaping or simply providing modern and attractive pedestrian crossways/entries/exits with special branding.

Keep it clean

Be sure to power wash your parking garages at least once to twice a year. This will not only keep your garage looking and feeling clean, but it will also prevent damages and promote safety. In order to consider a clean a power wash, you must tend to any grease and/or oil spots using cleaning detergent and use an oscillating surface cleaner along the entire garage. Go through your garage with the surface in a very detail-oriented fashion and utilize the wand attachments.

Provide ample signage

Have you ever found yourself frustrated in a parking garage feeling as though you’re in some type of maze? We’re going to go ahead and guess yes. Here’s a helpful hint: your building’s tenants like to get where they’re going, and they like to get there quickly and easily. Make a point to invest in comprehensive signage that will point drivers in the right direction and prevent confusion.

Another item to look into regarding signage if your garage experiences high occupancy on a regular basis is a lighting package. A lighting package will electronically monitor open parking spaces and relay the information to the signs that you have placed outside or within your garage to let drivers know where to look.

Make safety a main priority

Because of their closed-off nature, parking garages have always been a high-crime area. Because of this, it is highly recommended that you install a security camera system in order to your liability in the event that a crime occurs as well as the actual motive for others to commit a crime. Another way to promote safety in your garage is to install light sensors so that a person can see their surroundings and be aware if someone enters a nearby area of the garage. Finally, parking garages are one of the top areas Kings III suggests installing emergency help phones for three reasons:

• Garages are notorious for bad service- emergency calls from a cell phone won’t always go through.
• A simple press of a button can immediately transfer someone to the help they need- essential during times when a victim might be trying to run from an assailant and doesn’t have time to search for their phone and/or dial a telephone number.
• An emergency phone will give the emergency dispatcher an exact location of where the disturbance is occurring- something that is not possible with cell phones at this time.

By following these tips, you parking garage will be a pleasant and safe place to be, allowing it to be the ideal extension of the rest of your property that you would like it to be. For more parking garage maintenance tips, see Western Specialty Contractor’s maintenance tips. To see more about Kings III can help you with your property management needs, visit www.kingsiii.com.