Pavement Asset Management

The pavement maintenance space is a very unique and niche market within the construction industry that serves the property and facilities who are left to manage and maintain the buildings and property that someone else has built.

When it comes to parking lots, the task and responsibility of managing these assets can be overwhelming. Many property managers tell us that they don’t have time to manage even half their workload and also come up short when it comes to having enough money to maintain their parking lots.

Or do they?

I would agree with the idea of many property managers not having enough money to fund the maintenance of their pavement assets…if you take the traditional approach that so many property managers take by having a contractor look at each lot they manage and recommend the repairs necessary to keep that property up in proper condition. Those contractors will come back with their opinion(s) of what needs to be done which is typically a far higher cost than what the budget allows and the property manager is left to guess what to do. This confusion many times leads to no work being done or in some cases work being done that is a better deal for the contractor than it is for the true needs of the property.

If you have ever felt this way yourself, I have good news for you…there is a better way!

During my years in the pavement maintenance industry, I have developed a very different approach to this problem. Our company believes that clients should make decisions on what work should be done on their property based on FACTS and DATA…not based on the OPINIONS of a few contractors. This means looking at ALL or most of your properties and creating a Pavement Asset Management strategy that takes everything into account. We look at everything from the size, age, and condition of the asphalt on each property to the assigned budgets that the property manager is working within to create a strategy that has a few simple goals…to EXTEND the life of the pavement surface and to BEAUTIFY the property to the highest level possible with the budget we are given.

By taking this approach and following our specific evaluation process, we are able to assist in managing our clients’ pavement assets much more effectively and give them the visibility and information that they need to eliminate the typical challenges that come with managing a portfolio of pavement assets. PAVEMENT ASSET MANAGEMENT isn’t just a way to look at handling your parking lot projects and budgets, it is the ONLY way to effectively approach the management of one of the most expensive assets on any commercial property.

The checklist of what you’re looking for in a paving contractor that can help you make this kind of impact is as follows:

• Willing to look at multiple properties to give you an inventory of all the issues that exist on your properties
• Provides a high level of detail on every evaluation and/or proposal that they send you
• You always feel like the contractor is recommending a solution that makes sense, not the repair that they prefer.
• Communicates well and answer all of your questions.
• They are looking for a LONG-TERM relationship and not just looking to win your immediate work.

I hope this article has been helpful in giving you an idea of what an alternative approach to managing your parking lots/pavement assets might look like. This is definitely not a “quick fix” solution and takes a commitment from the property manager and the contractor to complete, but it absolutely will solve the long-term problem of always feeling like your budgets are always coming up short for what you need and eliminate the uphill battle of having constantly deteriorating pavement assets without the budget to properly catch up to the problem.

If you have any questions on this topic or would like to discuss this topic for your portfolio of assets, feel free to reach out to our team. You can contact us online at www.thepavementgroup.com, DM us on social media (@thepavementgroup), or email me directly at brian@thepavementgroup.com.