Repaving a Parking Lot Without Closing Your Business

For a store, restaurant, or office, a parking lot repaving job raises one question before any other: can customers still get in? In most cases the answer can be yes, if the work is planned around how your property is actually used.

What happens on a repave. Most commercial resurfacing follows the same basic sequence. The crew cold-mills the worn surface, meaning a milling machine grinds off the top layer of deteriorated asphalt, then lays and compacts new asphalt, and finishes with the curbing repairs and striping the scope calls for. That is the work our paving crew did at the Weis Supermarkets in Mt. Pocono, where we milled the deteriorated surface and laid and compacted new asphalt.

Phasing keeps the doors open. The usual way to keep a business running is to split the lot into sections and work them one at a time, so customers and deliveries always have somewhere to park and a clear path to the entrance. At Weis, our team resurfaced the lot in phases and kept the site accessible to customers throughout the project.

Questions to ask your contractor before you sign. How will the lot be divided into phases, and which areas will be closed on which days? Where will customers, deliveries, and accessible parking be during each phase? How will entrances, fire lanes, and loading areas be protected? What happens if weather pushes a phase back? When can freshly paved areas open to traffic? Who is my day-to-day contact on site?

Timing matters. Asphalt work depends on weather and temperature, and a lot that serves customers every day has busy periods you may want to avoid. Share your slow and busy seasons up front so the schedule is built around them instead of discovered halfway through.

Don't overlook the details. Fresh striping is what makes a lot work smoothly again, and curb or drainage problems are far easier to fix while the lot is already open. At the Lowe's warehouse in Mt. Pocono, our scope included poured curbing and final striping along with the asphalt.

Planning a repave? Tell us how your lot is used and when it's busiest, and we'll talk through options for keeping your customers moving.

Related service: Paving