What it took to repaint the exterior and interior of a fully occupied Office Depot in Southaven, Mississippi, without costing the tenant a single day of business.
PROJECT SNAPSHOT
| Building Owner | John P. |
| Tenant | Office Depot |
| Project Type | Occupied retail building |
| Location | 6808 Southcrest Parkway, Southaven, Mississippi |
| Scope | Exterior painting, interior painting (retail sales floor and warehouse), and waterproofing repairs |
| Timeline | 10 working days (exterior), 16 working days (interior) |
| Crew Size | 4-6 painters, depending on the day’s scope |
| Equipment | Articulating boom lift (exterior) |
| Coatings Used | Sherwin-Williams Loxon primer + ConFlex elastomeric topcoat (exterior); Sherwin-Williams ProMar 200 (interior) |
| Operational Impact | Exterior: fully operational throughout. Interior: roughly 10% of the store disturbed at any given time |
When people picture a commercial painting project, they picture ladders, drop cloths, and fresh coats of paint. What they don’t picture is customers shopping, employees ringing up sales, delivery trucks pulling in, and a business trying to operate as if nothing unusual is happening around it.
That’s the difference between painting an empty building and painting one that’s still open for business. In an occupied commercial building, every decision has to consider the tenant and their customers. As professional painting contractors, we have to think about where we stage equipment, how we sequence the work, and how we keep the business operating while the project moves forward.
For us, painting the building is only part of the job. Helping a business keep operating while we do it is the harder part.
A great example of this came earlier this year, when we were hired to repaint the exterior and interior of a commercial building just outside of Memphis in Southaven, Mississippi, leased to Office Depot. The building owner, John P., wanted to protect his investment and refresh the property. Office Depot needed to keep serving customers without a construction crew getting in the way. Our job was to do both at once.
The Challenge: Painting Around a Business That Never Closed
This wasn’t a vacant building we could take over for a few weeks. Office Depot stayed open for the entire project. Every decision we made had to account for a business that couldn’t pause just because we were on site.
On the exterior, that meant working through the holiday season, from late December into early January, and running lift equipment tall enough to reach a building that size. It also meant thinking strategically about parking. Every space our equipment occupied was one less space available for a shopper. Every detail mattered, even down to where we staged our lifts.
Inside, the challenge got more complicated. John wanted the work done efficiently. Office Depot’s team, understandably, saw a renovation they never asked for as an inconvenience to a store they were trying to run. Neither of them was wrong. Our project managers had to make sure both of them got what they needed.
Our goal was to complete the painting work without disrupting Office Depot’s daily operations.
Staying Out of the Way: Our Approach
Looking back on this project, paint colors and coating systems were important, but that’s not where we started. Every decision we made aimed to help Office Depot keep doing business while we did ours.
Instead of treating the building as one continuous job site, we broke the interior into stages and sections so Office Depot could keep functioning at every step. We designated specific work zones rather than taking over the building, which meant no more than about 10% of the store was disrupted at any given time. The rest stayed open and fully usable for customers and employees. Sometimes that meant changing our own plan, because what looked good on paper wasn’t always the least disruptive option once work actually began. Where it mattered, we worked around the tenant’s schedule instead of expecting them to work around ours.
We worked the building in stages and sections so they could stay operational.
No more than 10% of the store was disrupted at any given time. The rest stayed open the whole time.
A lot of that came down to our project managers, who were really the ones running point on this job. They listened when the tenant raised a concern instead of brushing it aside because Office Depot wasn’t technically our customer. They kept one consistent line of communication open instead of leaving the tenant to piece things together from whichever crew member happened to be nearby. Our project managers did a really good job working with the tenant, and that’s what kept this project on track more than anything we did with a paint roller.
The hardest part of the whole job, honestly, was staying out of the way. That got a little harder when we ran into something nobody had planned for.
Solving an Unexpected Problem Without Losing Momentum
Partway through the exterior work, we found water intrusion affecting the interior, traced back to one of the exterior block walls. Water has a way of finding small openings, and once it gets into masonry, the damage only gets worse if it’s left alone.
While definitely an unexpected hiccup, we didn’t treat it as a reason to pause the project or push back John’s timeline. Instead, we repaired the waterproofing as part of the ongoing work so the new coating system could perform as intended. The project stayed on track, and John never had to choose between fixing the problem correctly and finishing on time.
Why We Don’t Cut Corners on Product Selection
We didn’t choose Loxon and ConFlex because they’re our favorite products. We chose the Sherwin-Williams Loxon masonry primer, paired with a ConFlex elastomeric topcoat, because this building’s split-face block needed a system that waterproofs the surface while still letting it breathe. That combination keeps moisture from getting trapped inside the wall, where freezing temperatures can eventually crack both the coating and the masonry itself.
A less experienced contractor might have reached for a standard exterior paint to save the client some money up front. We’ve seen where that shortcut leads: a finish that looks fine on day one and fails years before it should, sometimes taking the masonry down with it. Knowing which coating belongs on which substrate is part of what we’re actually being hired for.
The Results
The exterior took 10 working days. The interior took 16. We kept a crew of four to six painters on site, and Office Depot remained open for the entire project. The exterior stayed fully functional throughout, and at no point was more than about 10% of the interior disrupted at once. The waterproofing issue got fixed without derailing any of it.
John was pleased with the finished work, but he also appreciated the way our crew worked with his tenant. He understood the renovation was an inconvenience for the people working inside the store every day, and he was glad our project managers listened to their concerns and worked around their requests whenever possible.
To us, that’s what a successful commercial painting project actually looks like. The finish matters. The schedule matters. But if we leave behind a well-maintained building and a tenant who felt respected the whole time, we’ve done our job.
Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Commercial Painting Contractor
If you own or manage a commercial building with tenants, customers, or daily operations, don’t stop your evaluation at paint products and pricing. A contractor’s answers to a few other questions will tell you a lot more about how the actual project is going to go:
- How will you keep my business, or my tenant’s business, operating during the project?
- How will you communicate with tenants throughout the job?
- How do you phase the work so operations aren’t disrupted all at once?
- What happens if you uncover an unexpected issue once the work is underway?
- What specifically will you do to minimize disruption to the people inside the building?
Those answers usually tell you more than a finished photo ever will.
Planning a commercial painting project on an occupied building?
We’ve applied this same approach on other occupied properties too, from retail centers to private schools working around a narrow move-in window before the first day of class. If you own or manage a commercial building and need painting done without disrupting your tenant’s business, we’d like to talk. Schedule a free estimate to start the conversation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Will my business have to close during a commercial painting project?
A. Not if it’s planned correctly. On the Office Depot project, we phased the work, quarantined specific zones, and staged our equipment around customer parking, and the store never closed for a single day. Whether that’s possible depends on the building and the scope, but it’s the standard we plan toward on every occupied property.
Q. How long does a commercial painting project like this usually take?
A. It depends on the size of the building and the scope of work. On this project, the exterior took 10 working days and the interior took 16. We’ll give you a realistic, project-specific timeline as part of your estimate rather than a generic industry average.
Q. What happens if you find an unexpected problem after the project has already started?
A. We treat it as part of the project, not a reason to stop. On this job, that meant repairing a waterproofing issue on an exterior wall as soon as we found it, without pushing back the schedule the building owner was counting on.
Q. Do you work around a tenant’s business hours?
A. Whenever we can. Our project managers coordinate directly with tenants and building owners to phase work, adjust sequencing, and keep one consistent point of contact so nobody is left guessing what’s happening next.
Q. What products do you use on exterior masonry buildings?
A. For masonry surfaces like split-face block, we typically use the Sherwin-Williams Loxon primer and coating system because it waterproofs while remaining breathable, which helps prevent the freeze/thaw damage that shortens the life of both the paint and the masonry underneath it.
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