A failing commercial parking lot does not automatically need repaving. When the failures sit in identifiable sections, they can be cut out and patched, which is a smaller job than the one a paving contractor will quote you.
Telling those two apart before you make a call is worth doing, because the answer decides who you should be calling in the first place.
What a patchable failure looks like
Patch work is sectional. The failures sit in identifiable places and the pavement around them is still sound.
That usually looks like one of these:
- A pothole, or a handful of them, with solid pavement on every side.
- A failed section in a drive lane or an entrance where the traffic turns and stops.
- Broken-up spots in a truck yard, where the loads are heaviest and the turning is tightest.
- A soft or crumbling patch around a drain or a low spot where water sits after it rains.
The common thread is that you can walk the lot and point at the problem. When the failure has edges, it can be cut out and replaced.
What is past patching
The other case is a lot where the failure no longer has edges.
When cracking has spread into a web across whole bays rather than sitting around one hole, that is usually the base underneath rather than the surface on top. When new failures keep appearing next to the last three patches, the same thing is being said a different way. And when the pavement is breaking up faster than anyone can keep up with it, the honest answer is that the lot is finished, not damaged.
That is a paving job. It is a bigger scope, a bigger number, and a different contractor.
Why we tell you when it is the second one
We patch broken sections. We do not do full lots, resurfacing, or new slabs, and we do not do driveways or new construction.
That is a real limit and we would rather say it out loud than quote around it. A patch laid over a bad base comes back, so patching a lot that needs replacing means paying twice for the same square footage. If your lot is at that stage, the useful thing we can do is tell you straight so you can bring in a paving contractor instead.
The reverse happens too. A lot with four bad sections gets a resurfacing quote for the whole thing, because that is the job the company on the other end of the phone sells.
Concrete and asphalt are not the same repair
Both get patched, and they get patched differently. Asphalt sections are squared off, removed down to sound base, filled, and compacted. Concrete sections are cut out and re-poured.
What matters for your decision is that the material does not change the patch-or-repave question. A concrete lot can be sound with three failed sections in it, and an asphalt lot can be past saving. Look at how the failures are distributed, not at what the lot is made of. Parking lot patching covers the method for both.
What to write down before you call anyone
Whether the work ends up yours to arrange or the landlord's, the same short record makes the next conversation faster and gives you something specific to hand over.
- Where the failures are. A rough sketch of the lot with the spots marked beats a description every time.
- How many there are, counted, not estimated as "a few".
- Whether water stands in any of them after it rains.
- Whether the count has grown since last year. If you patched something last season, note where.
- Dated photographs. Take them now rather than reconstructing them later.
That record is also what turns a vague complaint into a scope somebody can price, which is the difference between a quote and an opinion.
Who ends up paying for it
On a commercial lease this lands on the tenant either directly or through the annual reconciliation, and which one depends on the document.
Some leases put lot repair on the tenant to arrange. Others keep it with the landlord, who pays the contractor and recovers the cost from tenants through common area maintenance. Drainage structure normally stays with the landlord. Read the common area maintenance clause and the repair clause together, because between them they decide which arrangement you are under, and get the landlord's written consent before any work starts on common area pavement.
Your lease is the final word. This page describes the usual pattern and does not interpret your document.
Where to go next
Parking lot patching covers what we patch, what we decline, and how to get it quoted.
The triple-net tenant guide covers the lot alongside the rest of what a triple-net lease hands you.
Any work beyond the original quote gets approved by you, in writing, before we start.