The cost and efficiency of last mile delivery logistics is a significant challenge for online retailers and logistics providers.  It also has implications for time to customer, traffic congestion and environmental cost of delivery. Re-purposing parts or all of aging multi storey car parks in town and city centre locations offers a solution to this challenge as the buildings already exist within highway networks, the roads have existing vehicle movements and visual impact of the building is existing. 

Our engineers at Link have considerable experience of assessing the feasibility and designing modifications to existing building structures and a particular expertise in repairing and modifying aging car parks. We have worked closely with other specialist contractors to modify car park structures and facilitate the installation of local click & collect and delivery & return hubs.

If existing multi-storey car parks are to be re-purposed as part of a logistics network then it would be expected that structural modifications would be required to suit the proposed logistics process as well as any repairs that are necessary as a consequence of their historic use. 

There are many client need considerations, including vehicle size and height, whether different accesses are required (e.g. for deliveries and returns), how items will be sorted, picked and moved, vehicle maintenance, potential charging needs and equipment to be used (e.g. robots or other automated equipment).

Our engineers are qualified to assess the car park structure, which can take a variety of forms (such as steel frames with concrete decks, in-situ or precast concrete frames with precast concrete decks or in-situ concrete decks) as well as the need for structural repair works associated with age related deterioration, which can be costly.  We consider a number of options to meet our clients’ needs, such as forming new openings through floors, strengthening parts of floors (and supporting structure), removing parts of floors, reconfiguring access to floors and providing for installation of new equipment. If you are considering converting an existing multi-story cark park into a last mile distribution solution and want to know more about your options, please contact us at mail@linkeng.co.uk and we would be more than happy to provide you with some site specific advice.