Steel Buildings will save you time & money. Strip mall developers and builders alike will benefit financially by choosing high-quality products like Allied Steel Building Kits, and will save money on construction, maintenance, energy, and repairs. In addition, steel construction provides versatile and endless interior and exterior design options for attractive and appealing shopping centers. Steel constructed strip malls will increase revenues through higher rents and return on investments (ROI).

The Evolution of the Modern Steel Buildings Strip Mall

Since the 1950s, strip malls grew from the demand for car-friendly retail outlets. They typically included a collection of retail outlets, restaurants, and other services laid out in a row along a well-trafficked road, conveniently located near residential neighborhoods.

Today, the need for strip malls continues since many businesses require a physical location, like dentists, hairdressers, fresh food grocers, pharmacies, coffee shops, bakeries, dance studios, gyms, etc.

In the beginning, strip mall design consisted of drab, low-quality boxes, livened up only by businesses advertisements. Fortunately, today’s builders and architects are creating more aesthetically pleasing and less bleak strip malls than those of the past, for a more pleasant atmosphere that will draw in customers. In addition, tenants will pay more in rent for energy-efficient strip malls with low maintenance and durability, like those built with Allied Steel Building kits.

How Much do steel buildings cost?

The cost to build a strip mall out of steel varies from $12 to $19 per ft2 (Values may vary based on inflation, raw material costs and other highly volotile factors), depending on design, loads, and building codes, and pouring concrete for the foundation costs $3.85 to $7 per ft2 . Volatile steel prices and supply chain and labor issues can dramatically impact the cost of building a strip mall. (Values may vary based on inflation, raw material costs and other highly volotile factors)

Why Construct Steel Strip Malls with Steel Building Kits?

Steel building kits provide architects and builders a cost-effective method to quickly and easily construct durable and sustainable metal building strip malls, ranging from small 5,000 to 10,000 ft2 to large retail centers of more than 100,000 ft2.

1. Metal Building Construction Costs Less For More

Allied’s Pre-engineered Steel Buildings are a long-term and cost-effective commercial investment.

Reduced Building Costs

Quick and efficient Allied Steel Buildings save contractors time and money during the construction process with decreased material and long-term costs.

We qualify for a discount because we buy steel in bulk, which we pass down to our clients, lowering the cost of building strip malls. In addition, precision cutting minimizes our material cost by reducing waste.

Allied Steel precisely cuts each piece to fit together accurately, to ensure a smooth building with clean lines, which hastens delivery time and lessens labor costs. Labor to build a strip mall costs an average of $5 – $9 per ft2 per hour, representing 20 and 40 percent of the total project’s budget. (Values may vary based on inflation, raw material costs and other highly volotile factors)

Lower Long-Term Costs

For long-term savings, steel-built strip malls provide an edge over other building materials.

Fire-resistant steel protects against fire damage. In addition, steel
provides a more strength-to-weight ratio with built-in resistance to structural damage from high winds, heavy snows, earthquakes than wood construction.
If lightning strikes a properly grounded steel building, the lightning will flow through the framing, passing safely into the ground.

Insurance companies base premiums for buildings based on their resistance to damage. Allied Steel PEB offers insurance rates 30 to 40 percent below wood-framed buildings rates. Some experts forecast an increase in property insurance due to recent wildfires, floods, hurricanes, and riots, emphasizing the need to control and reduce insurance rates.

Successful and safe strip malls need regularly scheduled maintenance and repairs and detailed building inspections for damage to ensure long-term leases and the property’s value. Fortunately, Allied Steel Buildings have several significant features to help minimize long-term maintenance and repair costs:

• Paint finishes with multiple-decade warranties to protect against blistering, peeling, cracking, and chipping, unlike rot-prone wooden structures.
• Moisture-resistant Allied Steel PEB buildings do not contract and expand, which prevents the growth of structurally damaging mold.
• Naturally resists structurally damaging termites.

2. Open Faster with Prefab Metal Buildings

Prefabricated, offsite construction provides faster, more efficient, and less expensive construction than onsite building methods, allowing for shops to open sooner so investors can begin collecting rent.

Allied Steel Building Kits arrive at the job site ready-to-assemble, regardless of the temperature, taking about 33 percent less time to install and finish than other building methods, saving time and money:

• Materials arrive at site code compliant
• Accurate offsite cutting of the materials reduces onsite construction time
• Prefabrication allows for timely delivery of all building components before beginning the project to minimize scheduling delays.

Offsite building mitigates risk and helps combat the current labor shortages. A survey by McGraw Hill Construction found that companies utilizing lean, prefabricated building methods significantly improved their project’s bottom line (84 percent), customer satisfaction (80 percent), productivity (77 percent), and job safety (77 percent).

3. Metal Building Interiors Are Readily Customizable

Versatile and flexible pre-engineered Allied Steel Buildings kits allow architects and builders to customize a strip mall to fit their customer’s designs, regardless of the length, width, height, interior, and exterior requirements:

• Provides for expansion or rearrangement of the building’s parts for easy accomodation of changing needs in order to reduce remodeling costs and minimize the need to rebuild.
• Has convenient features to make strip malls more comfortable (windows, skylights), user-friendly (vehicle doors, walk doors), and cost-efficient (insulation, solar panels).
• Customized framing options such as clear span, modular auxiliary, and single-slope.

4. Exterior Options Are A Designer’s Dream For Aesthetics

Attractive strip malls with modern finishing, manicured landscaping, and well-maintained parking lots will attract higher-paying and longer-term tenants and repeat customers. These features will also improve the property value of the structure. Steel buildings allow you to create an aesthetically pleasing exterior that will encourage people to visit your shopping center with unique features:

• Exterior panels in an array of colors, shapes, and textures to fit the aesthetics of any strip mall.
• Mansards, canopies, and purlin extensions and panels.
• Wall products like framed openings, inset end walls, steel panels, and masonry and stucco facades.
• Other accessories, including windows, walk-through doors, overhead roll-ups, skylights, wall lights, gutters and downspouts, and custom trims.

5. Excellent Insulation Efficiency Reduces HVAC Costs

Energy-efficient features will increase a strip mall’s value, lower energy consumption, and lessen HVAC costs. Tenants will often pay more in rent for energy-efficient commercial buildings. Allied Steel Buildings have several features and accessories to help build energy-efficient strip malls:

• Precision cut PEB pieces lessen gaps in doors, windows, and other spaces vulnerable to air infiltration, which lowers HVAC costs.
• Maintaining a comfortable temperature requires applying an insulation product like batted insulation or a thermal insulated metal panel.

6. Steel Stands The Test of Time

Steel is durable and strong and can resist severe weather conditions, fire, moisture, earthquakes, and pests, to ensure a long-lasting strip mall. Steel construction helps secure long-term customers and tenants, and improve the structure’s resale value.

• Resists severe weather, with some models handling winds of 180 mph and snow loads of 120 lbs per ft2, saving on costly maintenance, repairs, and potential rebuilds.
• Allied Steel PEB buildings do not contract and expand, which prevents the growth of structurally damaging mold.
• Steel naturally resists structurally damaging termites.
• Fire-resistant steel traps flames, and prevents their spread to other building parts.
• Long-lasting steel buildings will absorb earthquake energy without adverse effects, like collapsing.

Allied Buildings Are Customizable, Prefab Steel Buildings Perfect for Strip Malls

Allied Steel Building Kits cost-effectively build strip malls with manageable construction and long-term cost. You can quickly construct prefab steel strip malls, and fill the spaces with paying tenants and eager customers. Allied Steel buildings offer endless features to create customized and aesthetically pleasing steel strip malls. Furthermore, steel-built strip malls can obtain more rent and ensure greater resale value through energy-efficient and durable, long-lasting features.

Contact your Allied Steel Building professionals today for more reasons to use metal buildings for strip mall construction.