Our honest answer on parking: we do not build multi-level concrete parking garages, and if you need one, you want a specialised structural concrete or precast contractor. What a pre-engineered steel builder does well is covered parking at grade: canopies over customer or employee lots, vehicle storage buildings, equipment barns, fleet shelters, aircraft and ramp-side shade structures, and the open-sided carports that keep hail off windshields.
Hail is the reason many Oklahoma owners come to us. A lot with a hundred cars is a hundred insurance claims after a bad storm. Covered parking pays for itself in lower deductible exposure and fewer cracked glass repairs, and a steel canopy goes up much faster than a garage. Large employers drive the demand. Tinker Air Force Base has more than 26,000 workers, the airline maintenance base at Tulsa International Airport has nearly 5,000 workers on 246 acres, and the military engines facility beside Tinker has more than 500 full-time employees. Everyone who drives to work parks somewhere.
This page explains the options, the wind and hail questions, the site issues and the cost drivers.
Four formats cover most requests. Cantilever canopies have a single row of columns and cover one or two rows of parking, with no posts in the stall. Gable or shed frames cover several rows and use more columns. Enclosed vehicle storage buildings protect fleets and recreational vehicles, with doors on one or both ends. Hybrid buildings have a closed storage side and an open canopy side, which suit service companies that keep trucks under cover and equipment locked.
Each format answers a different problem. A school bus fleet wants height and wide doors, which fits our school building work and the fleet and automotive owners we serve. A trucking terminal wants clear drive lanes and may share the frame with a cross-dock. An airport tenant wants shade and storm protection for ground equipment, which overlaps with aircraft hangars and aviation work.
Start with columns. In a parking lot, every post is an obstacle to door opening, turning and plowing, when the lot needs to be plowed in winter. The stall layout decides the column grid, and the canopy span decides the beam depth. We work with the owner's site plan and, if possible, line up columns with the stripe between stalls. Where the surface is sloped, we adjust base plate heights.
Footings come next. A canopy acts like a sail in wind, so the footings are bigger than people expect, often drilled piers set deep with anchor bolts. Soil conditions vary a lot across Oklahoma; a geotechnical report tells us whether the piers need to go deeper or be bigger. We set underground utilities and light conduits before the piers are drilled, so that nobody digs where a column belongs.
Wind is the design driver for open structures. An open canopy cannot hold the air pressure that an enclosed building does, and uplift is the main force. The National Weather Service Norman office reports 4,518 tornadoes in the state in a table that begins in 1950, an average of 59.4 a year, with May the peak. A code-level canopy is designed for design wind speed, not for a violent tornado, and no steel structure will survive the worst of them. We say that plainly, and we focus on making the structure survive the common storms and fail safely in the rare one.
Hail adds another load on the roof panels and on whatever is under them. Heavier gauge panels, tighter purlin spacing and standing seam profiles reduce denting. A canopy is worth installing mostly to keep hail off cars, so a roof that gets dented does not defeat the purpose. We offer options and let you pick.
The biggest cost lever is the span. Wide spans need deeper beams and bigger columns. Narrow spans use more posts and more footings. The next is roof finish: bare galvalume, painted panels or standing seam. Then lighting, drainage and electrical for vehicle charging, which is a growing request. We run conduit under the slab or alongside the piers now, even if the chargers will be added later, because trenching a finished lot is expensive.
Site work is typically a larger share than owners expect. A lot with poor drainage needs grading; a paved lot may need saw cutting for piers and patching. Utilities, light poles and fire lanes constrain where columns can go. We walk the lot, mark the buried lines and bring the numbers to you before the drawings are final. If the structure is part of a larger plan, see commercial metal buildings and pre-engineered metal buildings.
Working in an active lot takes planning. Parking is how the business runs: employees, customers, delivery trucks. We phase the work by row or by zone, close a section at a time and keep fire lanes and accessible stalls open. Crane picks and pier drilling are done outside peak arrival and departure times. Barricades, spotters and a clear walking route protect pedestrians.
Underground utilities are the main hazard. Before any pier is drilled, we call for locates and then confirm with a probe. Light pole bases, irrigation lines and communication ducts have a way of showing up where nobody expected. The crews we coordinate wear high-visibility gear and follow a daily briefing, and we keep the owner's staff informed of what is closed and when.
We build covered parking for owners across Oklahoma. Demand clusters near big employers: aerospace and airline bases in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, the Air Force bases in Del City, Midwest City, Altus and Enid, and hospitals and universities. Near Will Rogers World Airport, an industrial area east of the field covers over 400 acres, including about 88 acres of industrial and commercial land with tenants in logistics and air service, and the same kind of tenant uses canopies for vans and ground equipment. See the Will Rogers and Tinker area and Tulsa International aerospace for the neighbourhoods we know.
Send photos of the lot or a site plan and tell us how many vehicles you need under cover. We will propose a layout and a price range, and tell you where the underground lines could cause trouble.
No. Multi-level garages are concrete or precast structures built by specialists. We build grade-level canopies, carports, vehicle storage buildings and equipment shelters.
We cannot quote a number for your lot, since insurers and storms differ. Owners tell us the value is in fewer claims and fewer repairs. Ask your agent how covered parking affects your policy.
Often yes, if we design for it from the start. The extra weight and wind effect change the frame. Tell us early, and we run the conduit during construction.
Yes. We phase the work by zone, keep fire lanes open, and drill piers outside rush periods. The schedule is a bit longer, but the business keeps running.
No open steel canopy is designed to survive a violent tornado. It is designed to code wind speed. We explain what that means for your site and what you can do to limit damage.
Tell us about the site, the building and the schedule, and we will set up a review of scope, schedule and permitting.
See the services, building types and industries we plan and manage across Oklahoma.