Case Study: Exterior Commercial Lighting Project For Tucson Convenience Store By R. Neal At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

The client was a convenience store in Tucson, AZ that needed exterior commercial lighting for visibility, parking, and security. The parking lot of the convenience store required lighting in three separate places—immediately in front of the store, and to the left of the store on the side of the property. The opposite side of the property was a service driveway for trucks to enter and also needed separate lighting. A single employee parking spot in the very back of the store, just next to the delivery door, needed lighting as well.

The owner of the store had to balance aesthetics, security, and regulatory compliance. The owner wanted the entirety of the outer walls of her convenience store lit with energy efficient commercial exterior lights to provide building security after the business closed at 2am. There was a competing convenience store located right across the street from her store that operated at the exact same hours, but was dimly lit and rather “run down” in appearance. One of her intentions in contracting us was to create an exterior lighting system that would make her location look more attractive and safe. The main challenge we faced was installing fixtures in three key locations without creating light pollution that would violate Tucson’s very strict light pollution laws.

The scope of the project would therefore require us to use higher light levels in strategic locations to enhance image of safety and security. This was much more workable than placing bright lights everywhere and risk violation of light pollution codes. The particular part of town where this store was located required no more than .5 foot candles at the property line, so we had to make use of photometric design software to choose not only the exterior parking lights, but also the right pole heights and optics design. For exterior lights that we installed under the canopy and around the wall of the building itself, we could go as high as 30 foot candles to create the feeling of safety and security the owner requested.

Photometric design software proved invaluable to completing this project.

Our design software not only helped us select all appropriate lighting fixtures, but it also gave a detailed visual that proved lighting levels at the property line met with regulations. Exterior light fixtures and corresponding foot candle levels were also completely detailed for every location in the parking lot and around the store.

Our final equipment choices were both energy efficient and dark sky compliant.

All of the exterior lighting of the building itself was done with 250-watt fluorescent wall packs. Canopy lights were then installed under the store’s overhang to create particular bright outdoor down lighting for people entering the store. (It also made it possible for clerks to better see out the window and watch who was approaching the entrance.) In order to give the store that added sense of attracting, we used decorative wall packs in the front and on the sides of the store. Parking areas were lit with full cutoff shoebox luminaires to maintain dark sky compliance.

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