This custom crosswalk inside a parking garage at the Buckhead Atlanta shopping district shows the painting capabilities of EcoSweep, LLC and Advanced Paint Removal, LLC.

Mike Foster, General Manager of EcoSweep, LLC and Advanced Paint Removal, LLC.

If ever you have parked in a dingy, dirty parking garage with difficult-to-discern parking spaces due to faded, overlapping paint stripes, chances are you may not return. Instead, if given the opportunity, you’ll opt to regularly park in a clean, fresh-looking facility with clearly marked parking spaces. And if that facility happens to be somewhere in the southeastern United States, it may just be a customer of Smyrna, Georgia-based EcoSweep, LLC, founded in 2009 by Matt Steinhauser, a former executive with a parking facilities company.

Steinhauser’s professional experience gave him insight into the challenges involved with this business segment: namely, ensuring a steady revenue stream by providing customers with a clean-looking facility with easy-to- navigate parking spaces. Together with General Manager Mike Foster, a former manager with a parking facilities company, the leaders manage a team of 30 employees.

Steinhauser and Foster envision EcoSweep as a leading specialist in the cleaning and maintaining of commercial parking areas throughout their home state as well as Alabama, Tennessee, Florida and South Carolina.

Advancing the Basics

How hard is it, really, to wash and sweep and maintain parking facilities? Like most elements of the built environment, the degree of difficulty ramps up with the level of customer service delivered.

Take for example EcoSweep’s pressure-washing service. The company uses environmentally friendly chemicals to pretreat oil stains. The firm invested in a hot-water delivery system that utilizes burners to heat water for penetrating oil stains, removing the possibility of slipping hazards. The team also uses high-powered surface scrubbers to remove dirt and grime from concrete before applying a final rinse to remove any remaining dirt and debris. “We’ve custom-built our pressure washing rigs to our specifications, using a mix of motors and pumps, etc.,” Foster notes.

The company’s sweeping service employs ride-on and backpack blowers, and ride-on sweepers rather than sweeper trucks, which Foster says provide a more effective means for collecting the tire and brake dust that leaves those unsightly black marks on garage surfaces.

EcoSweep’s stellar customer service doesn’t stop there, Foster explains. “We go out of our way to hire workers who are committed to making our customers happy. Our crews clean around walls, wheel stops, poles and entryways,” he says.

Foster adds that the company also places a premium on regular customer communications. “While Matt and I were running parking garages ourselves before EcoSweep, we ran up against a lack of communication by maintenance companies performing the same services that we provide today. Not only were they using older technology, but the parking garage operators often didn’t know if and when crews were coming. Our experience shows that if we stay in consistent contact with customers, letting them know when our crews will be there and what they will be doing, customers are more satisfied,” he says.

Also adding to the company’s reputation as a full-service provider is its ability to react to the unexpected. Sometimes that means pressure-washing away melted debris following a car fire, notes Claudia Harrison, EcoSweep’s Business Development Manager.

Another example of the unexpected: a flooded hotel parking deck due to a broken water pipe. “We dispatched two crews with vacuum systems and in a matter of hours removed 3 feet of standing water,” Foster says. “We’re talking tens of thousands of gallons of water. I don’t know of another company that could have taken care of this as quickly as we did.”

Introducing Advanced Paint Removal, LLC

EcoSweep’s commitment to problem-solving and customer service led to its April 2020 launch of a new service for an age-old problem—how to make parking stripes completely disappear before painting new ones.

Two of today’s most common paint-removal techniques both have drawbacks, Foster explains.

Shot blasting leaves behind unsightly and sometimes confusing faded stripes while surface grinding. Though it may remove the stripes, it also removes the top layer of the concrete, creating inconsistencies in surface appearance. A third technique, using expensive chemical peel, can cause harm to cars due to accidental drips.

Enter Advanced Paint Removal, LLC, EcoSweep’s newly launched business unit. Always the problem solvers, EcoSweep reengineered existing technology to create its custom paint-removal equipment. The machines use extreme high pressure, introducing water and aggregates such as baking soda, sand or walnut shells to the stream. These remove the paint without changing the surface. “We also figured out a way, using huge vacuums, to reclaim the water and by-products created throughout the paint-removal process, leaving surfaces dry and pristine,” Foster explains. “The concrete is restored to its original condition, and when it is repainted, the look is new and fresh.”

Though its paint-removal business now represents less than 10% of company revenue, with the remaining revenue split between pressure-washing and sweeping, Foster predicts that it will soon account for a third of the company’s business. He cites several reasons for his optimism: word-of-mouth advertising following the successful completion of 50 jobs; the decline of COVID-19; and the addition of Harrison as well as Andrew Gerard, Director of Operations.

Two recent projects—999 Peachtree and Colony Square—speak volumes about the capabilities of the company’s paint-removal.

The latter, a downtown Atlanta mixed-use complex, includes a three-level parking facility with parking spaces that were repeatedly reconfigured. The resulting gray-out caused so much confusion that a security guard had to help direct customers into their parking spaces, says Foster. “We went in with our equipment, did a couple of test spots, and they were blown away. Now this is one of our successes,” he notes.

As is 999 Peachtree, a downtown Atlanta office building, where the Advanced Paint Removal technology was used to eliminate all paint from islands, curbs and columns in its parking garage. “We were hired to strip multiple layers of old paint and to apply new paint to completely bare surfaces. Now the garage looks brand-new and fresh. Such successes are satisfying for the customers and for us,” Foster says.

Looking Ahead

So, what’s ahead for EcoSweep as it begins its second decade of business? Simply this, says Foster: “We’re going to stay hyperfocused on delivering superior service as we grow our customer base, and we are looking forward to growing our workforce from 30 to 40 employees.”

“During our first decade, we grew organically by providing the best customer service possible,” Foster adds, “and this will continue to be our mission.”