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Steel mezzanine floors boost auto dealers’ parking capacity

MEZZANINE FLOOR Super Mezzanine floors comprise iron beams for vertical and horizontal support, as well as galvanised steel grating

SPACE SOLUTION Ideally, the mezzanine floor doubles the amount of parking available at an automotive dealership

24th July 2015

By: Donna Slater

Features Deputy Editor and Chief Photographer

  

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Steel mezzanine structures, manufactured by Linbro Park-based storage solutions company Pandae, are assisting automotive dealerships with easy-to-install additional parking space that will not result in downtime during construction.

The company’s Super Mezzanine floors comprise iron beams for vertical and horizontal support, as well as galvanised steel grating.

Pandae CEO Ryk Coetzee tells Engineering News that the floors are especially useful for automotive dealerships currently plagued by space constraints. He explains that vehicles of several different categories need to be stored at dealerships, including new, second-hand and serviced vehicles, as well as parking bays for staff, vehicle buyers and spare-parts clients.

Pandae’s Super Mezzanine floor does not require scaffolding during construction, which he highlights as the product’s most significant selling point.

“This allows for all facets of the dealership to remain open and fully functional during construction,” he says, adding that conventional brick and mortar mezzanine parking structures will force dealerships to close certain facilities during construction, thereby impacting on normal operations, such as service stations.

Coetzee tells Engineering News that architects and structural engineers design the mezzanine floors according to clients’ needs, after which the concept is taken to the local city council for approval and/or recommendations before construction begins.

He adds that the entire turnkey solution, from design to handover, takes about six months, depending on approval processes from the local authority. “This involves designing the floor, getting it approved by various town council departments, manufacturing the components and building the floor.”

Meanwhile, Pandae was awarded a R6-million contract by automotive dealer Associated Motor Holdings multifranchise Kia to construct a Super Mezzanine floor at its premises, in Bloemfontein. Construction of the 250 kg/m2 structure, with a total floor space of 1 600 m2, took six weeks to erect, after which it was handed over to the franchise for immediate use.

The floor increased the number of parking bays at the Kia dealership, from 55 to 119. This amounted to a cost saving for the dealership of about R80 000 a month, which was spent on renting additional off-site parking bays to store the vehicles.

Functionality
Coetzee says the Super Mezzanine floors can comprise up to three levels, excluding the original ground level.

“Pandae has built five Super Mezzanine floors in the past two years,” he says, adding that three floors were built as external structures and two were built inside buildings, all for other automotive dealerships.

“In most instances, the mezzanine floor is built above an existing ground-level parking facility, thereby almost symmetrically copying the original parking facility and doubling the amount of parking space at an automotive dealership,” he explains.

Challenges
While Coetzee highlights that there are few challenges associated with the construction of Super Mezzanine floors, he notes that the most significant stumbling block is obtaining a town council’s approval for building such structures, although identical Super Mezzanine floors have been approved quicker by different town councils in different provinces.

For example, the Kia dealership in Bloemfontein was approved without requiring a fire rating, as the structure is entirely made of steel and, therefore, nonflammable. However, the mezzanine floors in Polokwane and KwaZulu-Natal required a 30-minute and 60- minute fire rating respectively.

He says a 30-minute fire rating requires a single coat of intumescent paint, which is quite costly, and a 60-minute fire rating requires two coats.

“The mezzanine floor in Polokwane required about 1 800 m2 of paint, equating to a cost increase of about R650 000,” says Coetzee, adding that the cost to paint the one in KwaZulu-Natal was about twice as much, owing to its required 60-minute fire rating.

To overcome this challenge, Pandae sources local architects and engineers with knowledge on how the specific local authority requires things to be done.

“We do our best to ensure that we liaise with the right person [at the town council], thereby ensuring that we obtain approval with minimal impact on the cost of the project,” he says.

Future Plans
Pandae aims to market its Super Mezzanine floors to the automotive industry and hospitals as parking-space solutions.

Coetzee notes that steel-structured parking bays are a relatively new concept in South Africa, though they are prominent in Europe. “We envisage that these mezzanine floors will become increasingly popular, owing to the convenience of building them, with minimal downtime to dealership operations,” he says.

Generally, the floors are also not a new concept for Pandae, as it has been constructing them for several years as part of its storage solutions offering.

Edited by Samantha Herbst
Creamer Media Deputy Editor

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