Nobody wants to get the call that their building just got put on fire watch. But when the building has a full-sized grocery store, three office tenants, and a parking garage that can’t close, “fix it fast” comes with a very long list of conditions attached.
Picture this: there’s a busy grocery store sitting directly underneath the parking garage, and the main entrance to the store faces right out into the active work zone. You can’t shut down the entrance, you can’t close the garage for a month, and the city’s already told the owner the clock is running.
Add in several attached office buildings, and you’re dealing with a constant stream of shoppers, office workers, and cars moving through the space all day long.
At this property, those everyday challenges came with an added deadline. The city had red-tagged the building, meaning the owner had a strict window to repair the failing fire protection system or face a complete shutdown of the garage and the businesses that rely on it.
We were brought in to inspect the system and quickly realized the job was much larger than the initial plans suggested. Once our team got on site and looked at the piping in the field, the scope expanded significantly.
The riser room was originally designed to hold five dry valves, but the new layout required twelve. Squeezing twelve valves into that exact same footprint required creative piping layouts.
Our field crew made adjustments on the fly, building a few mock-ups and rerouting lines to keep everything up to code while making sure technicians could get in to service the equipment later.
Out on the parking decks, we had to be incredibly careful with how we scheduled the work. Because shoppers were walking right past our work areas to get to the grocery store entrance, we couldn’t just shut down massive sections of the garage at once.
We had to progress in phases. Every time we shut down a line to replace a zone, those specific parking stalls became temporarily unusable. Our crew focused on finishing individual sections quickly so we could return parking spots to the tenants, keep shoppers safe, and keep the garage operating.
Working closely with building management helped us cut the installation time significantly. Zones that would typically take about a month were completed and tested in roughly two weeks. That pace put the overall project months ahead of the original timeline.
Getting those systems back online quickly also saved the owner money. The building had been paying for 24-hour fire watch for more than a year, which added a significant daily cost. As individual sections were completed and signed off by the AHJ, the owner was able to scale back the building’s fire watch coverage. Getting the first level fully approved immediately reduced that additional operating expense.
The way the project was handled also built trust with the property management team and local inspectors. Because our crew stayed organized and kept the work moving, the property management company asked us to look at some of its other properties. Neighboring building managers also stopped by to ask about our work after seeing how the site was being managed.
That’s why we put so much emphasis on keeping the site clean and staying in daily contact with building management. When you solve the immediate problem without creating new ones, people remember it.
By keeping the work phased and getting each section signed off as soon as it was ready, we helped the owner reduce fire watch costs and move the project months ahead of schedule. That’s the kind of result people remember when the next property needs help.
