Popular Types of Retail Construction

In the world of commercial construction, there are plenty of different subsets– warehouse construction, restaurant construction, office construction, the list goes on. Retail construction is something that most reliable commercial contractors will see a lot of, but even within this subset, there are several different types of retail construction! While they all share some similarities, the best construction professionals know that each has their own unique set of needs and demands throughout the designing and building phases to ensure a quality finished product. Here at DESCCO Design and Construction, our architects, engineers, and team members have the expertise they need to navigate all kinds of retail projects! From huge hardware centers like GR Mitchell in Lancaster to welcoming markets like Mr. Bill’s Seafood in Lancaster, we have what it takes to create great retail spaces across the board. Here are some of the most common ones that we see.

Department Stores

Department stores can be both standalone sites or can be attached to other retail spaces, but as a general rule, they’re big– they have to be in order to fit the sheer amount of merchandise and shoppers that they’ll host on a daily basis! When planning and building a department store, one of the main things that a professional contractor will focus on is volume and crowd control, identifying the best ways to manage and facilitate the flow of people and products throughout the building and even into the outdoor spaces like the parking lot.

Grocery Stores

If you’re in the grocery business, you know exactly how much careful thought, planning, and even detailed human psychology goes into the layout of a store, and these influences all need to be addressed before ground is ever broken on a new space. After all, if you want to have your dairy aisle at the back of the store, far away from the front doors, you’ll need your architects and project managers to plan to place your refrigerated section there! Grocery stores have to take into account not just proper placement of all merchandise that’s for sale, but also adequate and safety compliant storage for products that haven’t yet hit the shelves, not to mention the same crowd management techniques that department stores have to apply. Building a grocery store is no small feat, but with the help of a contractor like DESCCO, you can end up with a beautiful and functional space, like the fantastic work we did at Stoltzfus Meats in Intercourse, PA!

Convenience Stores

In today’s busy culture, convenience stores are becoming more and more common, which means that most experienced contractors have gotten very used to building them! Convenience stores, depending on their location and target market, tend to see a lot of people running in and out, and since a large number of these people are likely to be in a hurry, this means things like dropped drinks, tracked-in mud, and other messes and sources of wear and tear. For this reason, choosing durable, long-lasting materials is very important for convenience stores! These types of retail spaces also have to be carefully laid out by master project planners to maximize sales and customer satisfaction, just like grocery stores, and in this process, it’s a huge help to have a design-build contractor who knows what they’re doing.

Shopping Centers

Why settle for just one retail space when you could have many! Shopping centers, strip malls, and other multi-use retail spaces often represent the ultimate challenge of a construction project. Their ability to host multiple different kinds of businesses means they need to be highly adaptable– while you might now enough to be able to put a commercial kitchen into a space that’s destined to become some kind of restaurant, most of the spaces could be taken over by any business, and will need the ability to be transformed into a boutique, a showroom, a workout studio, or anything else. Shopping centers require ultimate versatility and flexibility, and the contractor must do just enough to make the space enticing to a prospective business but not so much as to create a space only suited for a small number of uses.

If you’re planning to dive into a retail construction project like one of these soon, you’ve found the partner you need in our team at DESCCO Design and Construction! We provide professional turnkey solutions to all of your commercial design-build needs, and we’re ready to get to work, so contact us today for more information!