As a Greater Chicago area property manager, you want your commercial property to always look its best.
Sometimes, especially when a property is newly built, some basics are installed that may not be fully envisioned or poorly installed. Once you set your budget for the year, these can be the top things on your list for renovation or completion.
But how can you adapt a bare-bones concept to fit your property and business image? Completing partially installed landscaping on a commercial site can be daunting.
Let’s talk about commercial landscape enhancements and commercial landscape improvements that can elevate your facility to visual and functional greatness.
As a business trying to increase revenue and reach new customers, you may experience stagnant growth or instability.
When you look around at your commercial landscaping, and it feels old or incomplete, this could be adding to your challenges.
You can’t deny that your landscape can add significant value to your commercial business in many ways. Attracting new customers and amplifying your local reputation and presence are just two.
One of the best ways to gain these perks is to create inviting, polished, and finished commercial landscapes. Modern, eye-catching landscaping can impress anyone who drives past your property or chooses to step onto your site.
Whether you have owned or managed your commercial facility for years or just obtained it, it may need some sprucing up to help you envision your ultimate goals.
Commercial landscaping is one of the most significant contributors to your curb appeal.
As potential customers, employees, tenants, and visitors come to your commercial site, your landscaping will communicate you care for your property and everyone who ventures into it.
With your finished facility amenities, you tell them you want them to have a safe experience.
Here are some of our top recommendations for commercial property managers looking to spruce up unfinished landscaping.
No landscape can stay perfectly planted and arranged forever. Sometimes, what was put in as a temporary or quick solution when something was freshly built has long served its purpose.
Trees, shrubs, perennials, and annuals add beauty to your commercial property because they grow, change and adapt. They emerge in greens and blossom with bright colors, then transition in fall to deeper, richer hues. But they also grow.
Plants can lose vigor or become overgrown and messy as their conditions change. Temporary or quickly installed hardscaping can suffer from damage after tons of foot traffic because it wasn’t meant to hold up for years and years.
That’s where pulling up or replacing old or sparse plants and hardscapes becomes key commercial landscape enhancements.
Over time, inspecting current beds and removing plants that have seen better days or replacing hardscapes with better solutions (broken concrete with pavers, for instance) can help you instantly spruce up unfinished landscaping overdue for a fix.
Attacking your commercial landscape design in Greater Chicago here or there willy-nilly may temporarily help solve a problem. Still, this approach doesn’t necessarily lead to a bigger goal or vision.
Hiring a professional commercial landscape firm to assist you with planning your site design and strategy can simplify this process. A company with creative ideas can add more color and texture to your landscape or enhance your hardscapes, entryways, or signage in ways you may not have considered.
They can also help you choose the best trees, shrubs, and flowers for your area and site conditions and address problems like drainage and erosion without breaking your budget. Budgeting for multiple seasons can make it easier on you while still working to achieve your overall goals.
A plan can also help larger commercial facilities have a plant palette that a professional designer can create as a base and guide. Hence, the look across the property is consistent no matter how frequently the landscape changes.
Depending on the type of commercial property you manage, you may want to draw more attention to different areas. Your entryways and signage, for instance, may have been installed quickly, but this also means they could lack the right punch to truly draw positive attention and business to your site.
For instance, a retail center may want more color and vibrancy near signage areas and around ground-floor shops. A hotel may want to draw focus and attention to its lobby entrance areas, as well as near outdoor seating or pool and amenity areas.
The right commercial landscape improvements can guide people in the direction you want them to go and draw their eyes to particular areas of your property.
Your goal is to focus on areas that can make maximum impact because this will give you the most impact for your dollar. Places used most frequently, such as driveways or parking areas, signage, walkways, and entrances, tend to be the most important spots.
At your property, it is important to focus on how commercial landscape improvements will affect the people who visit your site. These are your customers, after all. Will it make their lives easier, provide a safer environment, give them enjoyable areas for hanging out, or add function and aesthetics that boost client interaction?
Commercial landscaping and people interact in many different ways. Therefore, it is important to design and plant with people in mind. How will different areas look from different perspectives? What will people see when they first drive into the parking lot, walk on the sidewalk, and look out windows?
This can help you target your enhancements to the unfinished areas that matter most to the people who matter most to your facility.
Flowers aren’t just for one season as part of your commercial landscaping. You can have seasonal color all year long, changing things as the weather changes in Greater Chicago.
Bulbs like tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, pansies, and violas can be the first color in spring. In the fall, flowers like mums, kale, ornamental cabbage, ornamental peppers, purple fountain grass, and sweet potato vines can add texture and impact to your containers or landscape beds.
Seasonal color is a great addition to entryways, drawing the eyes in and around signage to boost brand recognition. Areas where people hang out – outdoor break and lunch spots, walkways, etc. – can also get a dose of vibrant color to keep them interesting and engaging.
This is one of the easiest ways to take unfinished landscaping and make it pop from season to season.
Hardscaping, which includes all nonliving elements in the landscape, such as patios, pergolas, walkways, benches, bricks, stones, rocks, boulders, gravel, wood, and lighting, can also be a key component of commercial landscape design in Greater Chicago.
How can this be done to finish or complete a lackluster basic look? Paver patios and walkways can complement areas of your property while providing key spots for function and guidance.
Hardscapes like retaining walls can control erosion, create tidy landscape beds, and look beautiful. The ideas are limitless.
You don’t want to waste budget dollars and effort on new commercial landscaping if you don’t take care of it. The most important element in finishing partially installed landscaping is keeping your property looking top-notch at all times.
Weekly maintenance is important year-round, whether clearing dead plants or cleaning benches and walkways.
Another key maintenance point is choosing plants that fit into your environment and its conditions. Plants that can’t adapt easily to their surroundings will cost much more to maintain or replace in the long run. Hardscapes that aren’t properly maintained can result in cracks and hazards that will cost much more later to repair if left unchecked.
Trusting your site to a professional for regular maintenance ensures long-lasting enhancements.
Renovating or completing partially installed landscaping on your commercial site is an effort that is well worth it, considering what it does for your business.
It can help visitors find your property more easily, boost brand recognition and your reputation in your local community, elevate the perception of your business in your area, and show everyone on your site that you care about your business and customers.
While the benefits far outweigh the effort, taking care of your unfinished landscaping can feel overwhelming. Even with the best intentions, you don’t want to do anything that might accidentally detract from your business or property. You want to focus on just the right amount of impact that can offer the best return on your investment.
Let KD Landscape help. We’d be happy to review your brand image, goals, and concerns and suggest great ways to reinvent your commercial property landscape. This will help you meet your short—and long-term goals within your budget.
Want to learn more about how we can help you amplify your commercial landscape design and maintenance in Greater Chicago? Get started today with an on-site consultation. We’ll review your options together so you can feel confident and make a great choice.