When consumers think of top-quality car lines, Mercedes-Benz is one of the first that comes to mind. When design and construction professionals think of top-quality bifold and hydraulic doors, Schweiss Doors is in a class of its own.

Schweiss got the call to supply a glass-paneled bifold designer door for the new Mercedes-Benz of St. Louis dealership and service center. The Schweiss bifold liftstrap door delivered for the project measures 23-feet, 11 inches by 9 feet, 4 inches and is equipped with electric photo eye sensors, manual latch system, a door base safety edge, black liftstraps and a top drive motor.

PARIC Corporation of St. Louis built the 90,000-square-foot building and Zumwalt Corporation of St. Louis installed the bifold door. Brian Stoesz of PARIC says the door was specified by the architectural firm, archimania of Memphis, Tenn., which was awarded for its design work on the Mercedes-Benz dealership in Memphis.

Greg Price, AIA, LC, of archimania served as the lead architect on the project and said it was a requirement from Mercedes-Benz USA to have a glass façade on all sides of the building. “When you get into high-speed doors or recoiling doors, you can always tell they look particularly different than the rest of the façade,” Price says. “The Schweiss bifold system is just like an aluminum frame system like the rest of the building, only with a steel frame. It really gave us the opportunity to look the same, consistent, and still be operable for the owner to get their cars in and out.”

Price says an internet search led him to other door manufacturer products. “The Schweiss site gave us the better views and more defined specs, which led us to gravitating toward using Schweiss because it just fit better,” he says. “The marketing sold me on liftstraps, just because it made more sense.”

The new Mercedes-Benz dealership is able to provide a space that is sleek and modern, while offering clients a higher-quality and more comfortable experience. Price says there is a showroom about the size of a double garage behind the delivery center. When a customer purchases a car, it is put in that room for a new car buyer to learn how to use all the bells and whistles. The backside of that room has a big double glass door to move cars in and out of the showroom. The bifold door is used 10-15 times a day.

“I think Schweiss doors are cool, just because of the design of the steel frame that you put the aluminum glazing system into so it can match the rest of the building,” Price says. “That’s a really big selling point for me. It’s an interesting door and when it’s open, it creates its own canopy. A regular coiling of overhead door is just kind of plain.”