It’s officially fall, which around here means one thing: crews are grinding through the projects we spent all spring and summer planning for. There’s nothing quite like watching a job go from a stack of estimates and phase maps to actual concrete curing in the sun.
This month I wanted to pull back the curtains on one of our bigger jobs — 17,500 square feet of diesel lane concrete replacement at a Love’s Travel Stop in Jackson, Tennessee, and talk about what it actually takes to run a project this size without shutting the business down in the process.
Project spotlight: phasing for a 17,500 sf Commercial Concrete Diesel Lane
This one’s a big one. Last month we removed and replaced the old rutted asphalt surface and replaced it with concrete in the diesel lanes, the part of the lot that never really stops seeing traffic. Trucks are fueling up at all hours, so “just close it down for a while” was never on the table.
That’s where the phasing map comes in. We broke the lot into color-coded sections, each with its own day and its own job:
Monday through Thursday, crews are on site at 5am, trucking right behind them at 7am, to be able to be ready to pour 90+ yards of concrete by 11am. Friday wraps the week with a lighter 50-yard pour. Section by section, lane by lane, the lot stays open in the parts we were not actively working at, and the whole job stays on schedule instead of ballooning into something that drags on.
We made sure to phase this project out into sections that allowed the remaining diesel lanes to remain operational while they weren’t actively being worked on. Our goal is to provide minimal disruption to store operations.
Underneath the phasing, the actual work is the unglamorous, load-bearing stuff that makes a diesel lane hold up for the coming years: saw cutting 10 inches deep, checking and repairing the sub-base (if needed) before anything new goes down, tying in rebar, and pouring 5,000 PSI fiber-reinforced concrete with a broom finish for grip. None of it is flashy but all of it matters.
Unfortunately, having a plan in place doesn’t always mean everything will go according to it. During this project, we ran into a few unexpected challenges that put our original timeline to the test.
Not one, but both of the machines we had on site broke down at the same time. We were relying on a skid steer with both a breaker and bucket attachment for the breakout phase, while the excavator was needed to keep excavation moving. To add to the challenge, one morning’s concrete delivery arrived later than expected.
Instead of letting those setbacks stop the project, we adjusted, regrouped, and made a new game plan with what we had available. Construction rarely goes perfectly, and that’s where experience, communication, and a team that knows how to adapt make all the difference.
team spotlight: Three Crews, One Coordinated Project
We had three full crews on this job at once. From demo and removal, sub-base and reinforcement to pouring and finishing. They were often working in parallel across different sections of the same lot. That only works if someone’s watching the whole board, not just their own section.
Ethan Calhoun, Mad Jack’s Operations Director, closely managed this job from start to finish. Ensuring that each crew is in the right phase at the right time, that pours are hitting their targets, and that a hiccup on a Tuesday doesn’t turn into a lost week by Friday. On a job this size, oversight isn’t a nice-to-have luxury, it can easily be the difference between a smooth project and a client who’s stuck explaining to their regional manager why the lot’s still torn up a month later.
It’s a lot of moving pieces. It’s also genuinely one of my favorite parts of the job — watching a phase map on paper turn into a lot full of finished concrete, section by section.
As always, thank you for following along with our work. If you’re weighing a project like this one for your own property, we’d love to talk through what phasing could look like for you.
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