Score Big with Sports Facility Maintenance

Services

Why invest in a preventive maintenance program for metal, stone & wood surfaces in your sports facility? Learn about the benefits here!

Importance of Sports Facility Maintenance

In the hectic day-to-day operations of your facility, it can be tempting to put off maintenance until something breaks, wears out, or worse, until an accident happens.

This reactive approach of waiting for an emergency often ends up costing significantly more than if you had invested in regular preventive maintenance in the first place.

Preventive maintenance means proactively inspecting all assets in your sports facility on a routine basis. This enables you to identify and correct problems before they become a more expensive — and more dangerous — headache.

4 Benefits of Proactive Sports Facility Maintenance

According to the Kingsley Report, proactive maintenance is your “ounce of prevention” that improves safety, reduces liability, enhances aesthetic appeal, and creates a positive fan experience. A preventive maintenance program also saves money and boosts the value of your property over the long haul.

Safety. The primary purpose of maintenance is to ensure safe operation and reduce the risk of injury to patrons, athletes, and employees. For example, maintaining concrete floors with an effective stone floor protection system gives you a high traction finish, which reduces the risk of slip-and-fall accidents.

Legality. As a facility manager, another basic responsibility is compliance with federal, state, and local regulations, covering safety, health, environmental, and other issues. A failure to correct hazardous maintenance issues could also expose you to liability in a personal injury case arising from an accident occurring at your facility.

Appearance. In a survey conducted for one SEC institution, fans rated the outside appearance and inside appearance as the two most important factors in forming their first impression of the University’s football stadium. Preventive maintenance on metal, stone, and wood surfaces keeps your facility looking its best and fans wanting to return for future events.

Return on investment. According to one estimate, effective preventive maintenance can save a sports facility between 15% and 30% on operating costs. Lower costs, combined with a safer and more pleasant fan experience, have the potential to boost the profitability of your facility.

Examples of Maintenance for Sport Facilities and Equipment

The Amway Center, home of the NBA’s Orlando Magic, demonstrates the value of preventive maintenance. It became the first NBA facility to achieve LEED gold certification, and in keeping with that designation, the Center implements a preventive wood maintenance and metal refinishing program using LEED products.

Too many people think maintenance is just a matter of keeping surfaces clean. They think mopping, sweeping, and cleaning up spills are all there is to it.

But a comprehensive preventive maintenance plan also addresses routine restoration, repair, and updating, while achieving environmental sustainability.

For several years, The University of Texas has invested in standardized maintenance for the elevators servicing the Red McCombs End Zone at Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium, which is the north end and home to UT Athletics, luxury boxes, and general seating. The stadium’s plaques, statues, bronze letters, and other decorative features also get regular attention.

Types of Sports Facility Maintenance Services to Consider

Metal Restoration Service

Over time, ordinary wear and tear degrades the quality of metal surfaces including door handles, railings, elevators, and other objects.

Regular maintenance keeps this damage from accumulating. That’s why Sports Authority Field at Mile High, home of the World Champion Denver Broncos, has invested in high quality refinishing for its stainless steel columns.

Common metal maintenance requirements include scratch removal, field oxidation, restorations, vandalism repair, painting, and finish changes.
Quality metal restoration protects the surface from tarnishing, scratches, and fingerprints.
You can also update the style of your metal very easily. For example, an older elevator door can be given a polished satin or stainless steel look without having to spend thousands of dollars replacing it.

Stone Restoration Service

Various types of stone may be found on floors, walls, and other surfaces throughout your facility. It receives a lot of abuse from shoes, spills, and other sources.

Routine preventive maintenance can include honing, cleaning, polishing, recoating, and floor sealing.
Your service provider can do one-time restorations or regular planned maintenance.
A qualified stone restoration specialist will know how to use advanced tools and techniques to give you a great shine with a high slip coefficient, improving safety, reducing slip and fall accidents, and lowering your overall maintenance costs.

Wood Restoration Service

The Speedway Club at Texas Motor Speedway continues to make a stunning impression after a high quality wood restoration service improved the condition of its wood surfaces.

Wood may be found in lobbies, concourses, conference rooms, elevators, and luxury suites, and includes a range of items such as trim, doors, tables and seats, walls, and handrails. The most common wood maintenance services include repair, refinishing, or touch-up.

Touch-ups are used to correct minor damage such as small scratches.
Refinishing includes a touch-up along with a tint or clear coat for fading scratches.
A full restoration entails stripping or sanding the old finish, repairing damaged areas, and staining and recoating the wood.

In today’s competitive environment, a preventive maintenance plan can help you score big when it comes to safety, fan experience, and return on investment.

Do you have questions about taking care of the metal, stone, and wood surfaces in your sports facility? Contact Mid America Specialty Services at any time. We look forward to helping with your maintenance game plan.