01 / Storefronts
Storefront and entryway washing
Entrances, walkways, awnings and the concrete in front of the door, clean before you open.
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Guide
Setting a storefront and entryway schedule for your retail center.
In a shopping center, every frontage tells shoppers something about the whole property. Here’s how to keep them all looking open for business.
Why entries need their own frequency.
A shopping center’s walkways don’t wear evenly. The concrete in front of a grocery anchor or a busy coffee shop darkens much faster than the frontage of a quiet office tenant two doors down. Gum, spilled drinks and tracked-in dirt concentrate at each door, and those few square feet decide what shoppers think of the entire center.
That’s why entries and storefronts usually get a tighter schedule than the rest of the property. Washing the whole center on one cycle either leaves busy entries looking tired or spends the budget on frontages that still look fine.
Group frontages by how they wear.
The simplest way to build a schedule is to sort the frontages into groups. High-traffic entries, such as anchors, food tenants and anything near a transit stop, go in the group that comes around most often. Steady retail goes in the middle. Quiet frontages, service tenants and side entrances with little foot traffic go in the group washed least often.
The common walkways connecting them, the plaza areas and the parking field each get their own place on the calendar. When visits line up, the crew handles several groups in one early morning.
Before the first store opens.
Storefront washing works best before the center wakes up. Crews arrive in the early morning, often starting with the tenants that open first, such as a grocery store, a gym or a breakfast spot. Each frontage is washed, edges along the building line and curb are finished, and the walkway is left clean and drying before the doors unlock.
Our guide to getting ready for an early-morning wash covers the notices and access details that keep those mornings on track.
A sample grid by tenant type.
Grocery anchors, coffee shops and quick-service food tenants usually sit in the most frequent group, often weekly or every other week before opening. Steady retail such as clothing stores, salons and pharmacies tends to land on a monthly visit. Service tenants, offices and side entries with light traffic often look fine on a quarterly wash, and the shared walkway between two tenants follows the busier neighbor. The full list of what a crew washes at each frontage is on our storefront and entryway washing page.
If gum is a constant battle at your busiest doors, our guide to getting gum off sidewalks and plazas explains how it fits into each visit.
Adjusting for seasons and events.
Retail traffic changes through the year, and so does the dirt. The holiday shopping season brings more feet and more spills, so add an extra round of entry washing before it starts. Spring pollen leaves a yellow film on walkways under trees, and the first fall rains turn dust and leaves into muddy patches by the doors.
Grand openings, a new anchor tenant or a tour for prospective tenants are good reasons for a one-time wash, too. Our seasonal exterior-cleaning calendar lays out what each season brings.
Keeping tenants happy.
Tenants notice when their frontage is washed and when it’s skipped. A clear schedule every tenant can see, with the dates their entry will be cleaned, cuts down on complaints and shows the center is well run. Supervisors check each frontage after it’s washed, so every store opens to the same clean walkway.
The schedule for each group is set at the on-site walkthrough and written into the quote. See pressure washing for retail and shopping centers for the rest of the property, from the parking field to the enclosures.
A few useful answers
Quick answers.
Can a single tenant's entry be added between center-wide visits?
Yes. A busy entry can come around more often than its neighbors, and it’s simply added to the next early-morning visit.
Do tenants need to do anything before an early-morning wash?
Just move sandwich boards, display racks and outdoor seating back from the walkway the night before, so the crew can reach the whole frontage.
How are frontages grouped on the schedule?
By how quickly they wear. Food tenants, anchors and entries near transit come around most often, and quieter frontages less often.
Services
Services this guide covers
Frontage washing and gum removal usually share the same early-morning route.
02 / Gum
Gum removal
Flattened gum lifted from sidewalks, entries and plazas, so the concrete looks clean again.
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