What’s the Secret to Building a Better Parking Structure? Partnership.

Parking structures don’t get much respect. In fact, they are often an architectural afterthought, a supporting player to the main attraction. But Shockey is helping to change that approach to thinking about parking. Today’s parking garage owners are looking for well-designed, high-quality structures that add value to any type of project.

At Shockey, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to deliver high quality parking solutions with exceptional value. We believe that success depends on three key factors – expertise, experience, and partnership. To that end:

  • Shockey recommends an early alliance between the project owner and an experienced design/build partner — quickly generating a creative, cost-effective design solution, integrating structural elements as intriguing design features.
  • Shockey combines the lessons we have learned over decades of designing and building parking structures – as a design/builder and, for many years, as a precast concrete subcontractor – with the lessons learned by the key subcontractors with which we maintain strategic alliances.
  • These smart partnerships get the job done better and faster. By choosing an efficient design-build model and relying upon the most appropriate structural system, owners see fewer change orders, gain an accelerated construction schedule, and lock in a guaranteed maximum price.

Consolidating design and delivery for an award-winning garage

One Loudoun is a large mixed-use development in Ashburn, Virginia that is quickly becoming the new urban hub for Loudoun County.

To meet urgent consumer demand for parking spaces, developer Miller & Smith hired Shockey to design and build nearly 800 spaces on a fast-track schedule. Schedule, cost control, and design excellence were the client’s three primary drivers. The alignment of these three objectives required a highly collaborative partnering approach with a unified vision.

We teamed up with TEG Architecture in a design-build partnership where we strategically overlapped design and construction stages. Our integrated approach placed a high emphasis on schedule, trade sequencing, and constructability while maintaining the client’s architectural design goals, program requirements, and budget. There was trust, transparency, and constant dialogue between the owner, designer, and contractor.

Delivered in just seven months, the 791-space garage at One Loudoun has four structured levels and one on-grade level. The bold and playful architecture meaningfully contributes to the upscale, high-energy mixed-use community that surrounds it. Based on the success of the first structure, a second One Loudoun parking garage is already under construction.

So, what’s the takeaway?

At Shockey, we know structured parking better than most anyone. We understand how to deliver best value, with fastest time to market. If you’d like us to put our parking know-how to work for you, contact Jeff Boehm – with 30 years of parking experience — at jboehm@howardshockey.com. You’ll get the best value for your parking investment.

These smart owners already have, with Shockey parking garages currently under construction:

  • Navy Federal Credit Union Parking Garage, Winchester – 1,607 spaces
  • One Loudoun Parking Garage 2, Ashburn – 449 spaces
  • Loudoun County’s Pennington Garage, Leesburg – 717 spaces
  • Arlington Trades Center Parking Garage Expansion, Arlington – 164 additional spaces
  • Valley Health Medical Center East Parking Garage Expansion, Winchester – 250 additional spaces
  • Shenandoah University Parking Garage 2 , Winchester – 300 spaces

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