Who you gonna call when you need three top-of-the-line glass bifold straplift doors for a bike transit station in California? You could call Schweiss Doors in Minnesota, or you could call a California-based company that sells and installs them: McKendry Door Sales & Service of Santa Fe Springs.
McKendry Door Sales & Service (MDS) bills themselves as resource for the best and most specified brands and products in the industry. Maybe that’s why they looked to Schweiss Doors to provide the three custom-made 19’-5.63” x 7’-1.56” straplift bifold glass doors for a bike transit project in Santa Monica, California.
Bikes are taking over America. Major cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco are launching public bike sharing systems for the first time, joining Boston, D.C. and Denver. In these metro areas, most auto trips are two miles or less. Giving up that short trip in the auto saves cash on gas, parking, tickets and time in traffic. It also limits car trips in and out of the City By The Sea.
The Santa Monica Bike Center is located in Downtown Santa Monica and offers two convenient locations. Just off Colorado Avenue, overlooking the ocean at Santa Monica State Beach Park, and another just a couple of blocks away. The sites offer secure bicycle parking, showers and lockers, bicycle repairs, rentals, guided bike and Segway tours, bike education and encouragement programs, and retail products.
When the Bike Center opened its doors in Santa Monica in 2011, Metro billed it as the largest bike parking facility in the United States. In two separate facilities, the Center has 5,300 square feet of rack space—enough for 360 dedicated spaces—which is more than 300 members can access at any time. The center at times sees more than 3,000 member visits a month. When the Exposition Light Rail Line opens in 2016, city officials hope more people will choose to leave their cars at home and bike to a nearby rail stop, which ends just two blocks from the center.
City officials said the bike center has provided $106,826 in revenue to City Hall since its opening in November 2011.The partnership between Bike and Park and the City of Santa Monica is turning into a profitable one. While the two have a revenue sharing agreement, the city wasn’t counting on any money from the bike parking company except rent. In 2012, Bike Center wrote a check of over $75,000 in revenue sharing with the city. The center hopes to make a million dollars in revenue soon with the retail side the biggest generator followed by membership fees that help pay for ongoing maintenance.
The Schweiss bifold strap doors are put to good use each day. For safety purposes the doors were ordered with photo eye sensors, door base safety edges and have an emergency backup hand crank, in case of a power outage. Keyed up/down switches ensure that only those authorized to operate the door can do so. Galvanized side rails were put on the doors due to their close proximity to the ocean as a rust preventative.
MDS has an engineering staff that can design doors for even the most difficult applications, and who know when the job calls for a high-quality door. This wasn’t the first time MDS called on Schweiss Doors for a special project. The company also was involved in the design and installation of a 10'-ton, glass bifold for Red Bull's corporate headquarters in in Santa Monica. The monster door measures 40' x 28'.
Founded by Steve McKendry in 1952, MDS has since branched out to Northern California and all the way to the border of Mexico.
Bill Paulson, McKendry's Senior Project Engineer, said he learned about Schweiss several years ago and has been recommending the company's doors ever since.
“The bicycle transit people are very happy with the Schweiss doors. This was a very interesting job in that everything was sloping upward from the ocean. We needed control points which the existing structure didn’t have, and the base of the door was not there yet,” noted Paulsen. “I think Schweiss doors are understandable and a good product.”
To see more on this project on the Schweiss Doors website, click here.
Photos courtesy of the Santa Monica Bike Center