Commercial landscape design is becoming increasingly popular among businesses that want an alternative to standard concrete exteriors. This comprehensive approach to property enhancement can offer many benefits to businesses, including increased customer interaction, improved employee well-being, and significant long-term cost benefits. Professional landscaping includes specific safety features to ensure visitors can navigate the property safely, helping your business greatly reduce liability while elevating its curb appeal.
This commercial landscape design guide will explain everything you need to know about adding these beautiful, functional elements to your corporate campus, retail center, or office park. Learn more about the core features, the extensive benefits a thoughtfully designed landscape can offer your commercial location, and how to properly plan and install this transformative outdoor environment to maximize your return on investment.
What Is Commercial Landscape Design?
A commercial landscape design, also known as commercial property landscaping, is a meticulously planned outdoor recreational or aesthetic area that integrates natural and built environments. This service provides a rich sensory experience and facilitates a welcoming atmosphere for customers, clients, and employees alike. When executed by professional designers, our commercial-grade landscape designs incorporate the following essential features:
- Zero-barrier entryways to ensure seamless accessibility for all guests
- Drought-resistant native plant species that require minimal watering
- Permeable paving materials to manage stormwater runoff effectively
- Shaded seating areas to enable outdoor meetings and comfortable rest breaks
- Inclusive, navigable pathways designed for individuals of all abilities and ages
- Available hardscape elements like retaining walls, decorative boulders, and custom planters
- Recommended irrigation tools, installation guidelines, and ongoing maintenance schedules
- Strategic lighting elements intended to illuminate walkways and highlight architectural features
Compared with standard turf grass and basic concrete walkways, a comprehensive landscape design is a more sustainable, visually appealing, and economical option that still offers tremendous functional value. If you want to incorporate a custom landscape or a turnkey outdoor plaza system at your commercial location, investing in high-quality design is the perfect solution. Beautifully structured outdoor spaces can attract more foot traffic to your business, enhance your brand image, and ultimately help you grow your long-term revenue.
Commercial Landscape Design Benefits
Beautiful and engaging outdoor spaces can easily fit your budget, specific design preferences, and unique spatial requirements. Consider investing in a comprehensive landscape design if you want to add the following transformative benefits to your growing business:
- Encourage interaction: With a custom landscape design, you can offer your guests an inviting outdoor environment that naturally facilitates interaction. Visitors can gather around central water features, sit on comfortable built-in benches, and enjoy the ambient environment. Thoughtful landscapes also enable interaction among different business departments by providing shared outdoor workspaces, benefiting the whole company.
- Offer versatility: Multiple functional zones make landscape designs incredibly versatile, so they appeal to every type of visitor and business requirement.
- Provide accessibility: A well-designed commercial landscape is fully accessible to people with all physical abilities, so every visitor can navigate the space with ease.
- Energize your environment: With a commercial landscape design, you can completely energize a formal or urban space with vibrant greenery, interactive plazas, and modern art installations. A vibrant landscape can attract diverse visitors and serve as a prominent, beautiful gathering place in your local community.
- Increase revenue: You can plan for adjacent outdoor cafes or pavilion rentals. Optional event hosting fees can easily fund your ongoing maintenance, facility operations, and future property expansions.
- Enjoy efficiency: Locating your newly designed landscape near established amenities can make your commercial property much more efficient, including improving the flow of traffic in parking lots, restrooms, picnic areas, and central maintenance hubs.
- Offer a refreshing experience: During the sweltering summer months, a well-shaded landscape can provide a refreshing, cool environment to keep visitors comfortable and prevent the urban heat island effect from overwhelming your property.
- Tie in your branding: Enhance your company’s corporate branding by working closely with our design team to select specific colored plants, branded hardscapes, and themed components for your outdoor space.
- Generate interest: With a modular planting and lighting system, a property manager can rotate seasonal flowers and seasonal displays every so often. Doing so can continually renew interest in the location and encourage visitors to return. You can also stand out significantly from your local competition, drawing far more regular visitors to your location.
- Enjoy durability: We recommend using high-quality hardscape materials and native plants to create all your outdoor environments, ensuring your property components can withstand harsh weather conditions and decades of continuous use.
- Gain customer loyalty: With the installation of a beautiful landscape, your business can effortlessly gain new customers and increase overall customer loyalty by giving the community a visually stunning reason to continue returning to your property.
- Choose from a range of design options for modern commercial landscapes. Paving surface colors, plant varieties, and lighting elements come in all shapes and sizes, enabling virtually countless theming and design possibilities. With so many diverse options available, you can easily incorporate historical elements from your local community or create a completely new, unique area that stands out boldly.
With all the remarkable advantages a professionally designed landscape can offer, it is absolutely no surprise that more businesses are becoming increasingly interested in installing these sophisticated outdoor environments.
Cost Benefits of Commercial Landscape Design
Your company can also enjoy substantial cost benefits by actively investing in professional commercial landscape design.
Construction
Compared to massive architectural renovations or building expansions, the cost of a commercial landscape’s initial construction is far less. Additionally, a landscape project does not require many of the complex structural security features that are required for indoor building additions, such as heavy-duty administration facilities, highly restricted gates, and massive steel framing. Because commercial landscapes can take significantly less time to install than a brand-new building wing, your daily business operations will not be on pause for very long, offering another excellent cost benefit to your bottom line.
Maintenance
After your commercial landscape is fully built, the ongoing maintenance costs are significantly lower than those associated with outdated, high-water turf lawns. Modern equipment operating costs are also much lower, especially for a smart irrigation system that does not use excessive municipal water, chemical fertilizers, or massive gas-powered mowers.
If you do use an automated landscape irrigation system with specific water filters, you may need to clean them regularly, especially if heavy rains are washing dirt, grass clippings, or other natural debris into the drainage surface. If you have multiple drainage filters installed, you can easily set a rotating schedule that alternates which filter is cleaned and maintained each month.
Operations
The daily operational costs of a sustainable landscape are significantly lower than those of maintaining traditional, high-maintenance exterior facilities. If you do not charge visitors to enter your outdoor garden areas, you may not need to hire dedicated access control personnel. Safety concerns are generally much lower in open landscapes and do not require you to hire specialized security or monitoring personnel, as well.
Your long-term costs will vary significantly depending on the specific type of landscaping system you choose to install. You can typically choose from two main types of landscape irrigation systems – traditional municipal pass-through and modern recirculating rainwater:
- Pass-through irrigation systems: A traditional pass-through system uses treated potable water from the city and allows excess to drain into the local sanitary system, so complex water monitoring is not needed; the primary ongoing cost is simply the monthly water bill. In some advanced property systems, runoff water can be actively collected and used for secondary graywater applications on the premises.
- Recirculating rainwater systems: Recirculating systems, on the other hand, collect natural rainwater in a massive underground holding tank, where it is organically filtered and pumped back to the garden irrigation nozzles. A recirculating system requires scheduled water quality monitoring and occasional natural adjustments. Though this incredibly sustainable system uses far less municipal water, the required monitoring is a minor, ongoing cost to consider carefully.
Considerations Before Landscape Design Installation
If you want to install a beautiful commercial landscape design, there are a few important considerations to keep in mind beforehand to ensure ultimate success.
Size of the Landscape Design
One of the very first things you should carefully consider before moving forward with any installation is what exact size and shape you want your new landscape to be. Professional design firms can customize your outdoor areas to your precise needs, so your landscape can be any size or shape you want. Just share your grand vision for your commercial outdoor project, and expert designers will work tirelessly to make it happen!
Landscape Design Safety Features
The high-quality hardscape used in commercial landscaping features specialized textured finishes that provide visitors on your commercial property with a safe, low-risk environment to navigate, reducing the risk of slipping and falling. We highly recommend several innovative surfacing options other than the standard, boring brushed concrete finish. Included in the most popular surface options are the following excellent choices:
- Permeable pavers mixed with stabilizing resin and set securely over a graded gravel base
- Fine exposed aggregate particles added to your main plaza’s decorative concrete finish
- A poured-in-place recycled rubber pathway that provides a highly flexible, seamless walking surface
The heavily textured, non-slip surface will always make pedestrian safety a top priority. Each of these distinct surfaces is also visually appealing and will attract visitors of all ages to the beautiful outdoor area. When you carefully select one of these premium surface options for your property, you will ensure total guest safety, keeping happy families coming back for more outdoor enjoyment.
How to Maintain Water Features and Manage Water Usage Efficiently
Your landscape’s decorative water features should have a dedicated filtration system and an automated sanitizer to completely eliminate algae, bacteria, and viruses. To ensure your beautiful aquatic system is working effectively and the display water remains crystal clear, inspect the filtration pumps every single day the outdoor plaza is open to the public.
A major, understandable concern for many business owners considering adding commercial water features is the potential impact the display will have on their monthly municipal water bill. You can definitely expect a slightly higher bill to cover the initial fill of the massive basin system. Fortunately, your well-designed system will likely not require very much additional water after that initial fill, aside from topping off minor evaporation. You may also want to carefully consider the minor effect the pumping system may have on your commercial electricity bill. In most modern cases, this specific monthly utility cost is incredibly low and highly affordable.
How You Will Winterize the System
When the crisp fall season ends, your delicate landscape irrigation pipes should be professionally blown out. This critical maintenance step ensures the underground water lines will not freeze and break during the harsh winter months. The process for winterizing your commercial landscape system is virtually identical to that for a standard residential sprinkler system. All you really need is a portable air compressor to complete the relatively short task of blowing out the plastic pipes and ensuring your property is fully ready for the warmer spring seasons.
You may also strongly need to remove all the delicate above-ground spray nozzles and carefully cap them shut, turn off the automated auto-fill valve that goes directly to the underground holding tank, and safely power down all sensitive electronic timing equipment. Your specific irrigation equipment will also come with highly detailed instructions on exactly how to winterize your system. When you are finally ready to reopen your lush landscape in the spring, you will simply reverse the entire process. While opening your system for the year, always perform a thorough visual inspection and conduct any strictly necessary maintenance on moving valves and pumping equipment.
Additionally, you may want to carefully consider exactly where your mechanical equipment will be permanently located, such as hidden inside an artificial decorative boulder or securely housed in a dedicated indoor equipment room. This is absolutely essential to consider early on, so you know exactly where you will easily maintain and repair your complex system.
How You Will Pay for the Landscape Design
How much your custom landscape will ultimately cost depends entirely on the exact specifics of your unique project. Many cautious business owners are highly concerned about the initial upfront cost of a massive landscape overhaul, which is exactly why many design firms offer flexible financing options so you can attract new customers right now and easily pay later.
Lack of immediate financing should never stand in the way of getting you the stunning commercial landscape design you truly want. As such, you can actively seek out special commercial lease-purchase programs in the U.S. through reputable lenders like Navitas Leasing Corporation and Marlin Leasing. Along with excellent financing options, top landscaping firms offer highly competitive prices, so you can begin enjoying the myriad benefits of a gorgeous outdoor space on your commercial property today. When you smartly choose flexible financing solutions, you can easily:
- Completely update an older, visually unappealing exterior recreational area
- Get your custom landscape installed and open to the public as soon as possible
- Vastly improve your company’s cash flow when you strategically spread out the total cost
- Enjoy significant corporate tax advantages if your specific leasing payments are legally tax-deductible
- Purchase the exact high-end materials you want with highly affordable monthly payments, including the highest-quality stones and the safest lighting features
You may also be able to safely fund your new landscape project through a traditional commercial loan from a local bank or through community fundraising. But working closely with a dedicated design-build firm will allow you to conveniently plan, purchase, and perfectly finance your outdoor area from a single, reliable source. If you are highly interested in exploring a comprehensive financing solution, professional representatives can expertly guide you through each step and provide all the critical support you need.
How to Install a Commercial Landscape Design
When a commercial landscape is properly designed and expertly installed, you will save significant time and money on daily operations and extensive long-term property maintenance. Your dynamic business will also have the absolute flexibility to easily upgrade or further expand your gorgeous outdoor solution whenever you choose. If you truly want a stunning landscape installed on your commercial property, simply follow the detailed steps below.
1. Analyze Your Site
Your very first critical step is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of your physical site and ensure that the proposed design strictly complies with modern construction practices and all mandatory local building codes. A dedicated landscape project engineer can expertly handle the complex pre-planning, detailed scheduling, precise resource forecasting, and other highly technical evaluations required for your new commercial outdoor space. You can also confidently give your chosen project engineer the complete reins to handle all daily communications with your specific landscape architects, environmental designers, and heavy equipment installers.
With a highly experienced landscape project engineer right on your side, you can easily ensure that the complex installation of your outdoor environment stays perfectly on schedule and is completed exactly according to the master plan.
2. Evaluate the Feasibility of the Project
After you successfully complete the necessary groundwork for your landscape project, you can thoroughly evaluate the key factors that could significantly impact its ultimate success. Make the following critical considerations:
- What you should realistically expect for monthly municipal water consumption rates
- Where your expansive landscape’s main electrical and water supply will safely come from
- What is your exact total budget for the entire project, including future maintenance and the initial installation
- The specific type of stormwater management system you legally need, and what the absolute best drainage solution will be for your property
3. Obtain Input From Stakeholders
Next, you may strongly want to actively collect detailed feedback from the local community to accurately determine exactly how well your proposed plans for a new landscape align with your community’s specific wants, critical needs, and highest priorities. How wildly successful your completed landscape will be depends heavily on this invaluable community feedback. By diligently conducting the vital research well ahead of time, you can finally say goodbye to stressful guesswork and be supremely confident as you steadily move forward with your massive outdoor project.
When carefully gathering essential feedback from the surrounding community and corporate stakeholders, always make the following vital considerations:
- Whether you strongly want to consider utilizing modern, eco-friendly materials and solutions
- Whether you seriously want to consider creatively implementing distinct seating or walking zones
- What exact environmental impact will the newly designed landscape have on its immediate surroundings
- Whether your new outdoor space will be heavily targeted to a certain demographic or specific age group
- Whether you will be actively incorporating a well-known local or historical community theme into your beautiful design
- What the local community truly wants in an outdoor space, such as shaded pavilions for resting or an expansive, zero-depth grassy lawn
4. Prepare Drawings of Your Landscape Project
To successfully develop a clear visual representation of your landscape’s many required components, you must carefully prepare detailed architectural drawings of your commercial project. These incredibly detailed drawings should clearly illustrate your new landscape’s overall master layout, the exact placement of each specific plant and hardscape feature, the precise lighting radius, the hidden irrigation schematics, and the expected pedestrian flow rates for every single pathway.
The exhaustive details safely included in your final project drawings will greatly help you streamline complex development, strategic planning, and heavy manufacturing, while drastically reducing the costly risks associated with your landscape’s final physical implementation. A licensed engineer or certified landscape architect can ensure that the exact specs of your project meet all legal requirements and practical considerations, such as properly sloping the paved surface toward the storm drains and safely accounting for heavy soil erosion from strong winds.
5. Acquire Approvals and Permits
To ensure you fully understand the strict municipal zoning regulations closely associated with implementing a massive commercial landscape, you should actively communicate with the appropriate local planning authority. When you officially apply for construction permits, proactively engaging with the local planning authority early on will ultimately save you massive amounts of money and precious time, and will inevitably lead to a significantly shortened, stress-free approval process.
You should also meticulously identify the specific state and city building permits required for the heavy installation phase of your complex landscape. There are likely strict legal parameters for a commercial property’s tree canopy coverage and impermeable surface ratios. If so, it is absolutely essential that your final site drawings remain strictly within the locally set range. Urban ecosystems can easily become imbalanced, and local drainage infrastructure can fail or become clogged with sediment, so these critical environmental metrics should be monitored and verified regularly.
6. Hire Professionals for the Manufacturing and Construction Process
One of the very final, most exciting steps of the entire process is the physical material manufacturing and heavy onsite construction. After you have successfully planned and thoroughly analyzed all the complex matters closely related to your landscape project, you can confidently hire professional contractors to finally break ground on your gorgeous new outdoor area. They will expertly handle absolutely everything from safely laying the heavy stone pathways to properly installing the delicate architectural lighting features.
Highly trained landscaping professionals can install the massive system incredibly quickly, so you can eagerly get to the grand opening day and fully enjoy the spectacular latest addition to your commercial property. Speak directly with one of our friendly design representatives today to learn much more about the flexible financing solutions we proudly offer and our highly efficient, streamlined construction process.
7. Enjoy Opening Day
You have finally reached the highly anticipated opening day! During this spectacular final step of the long process, you can proudly open your gorgeous new commercial landscape to excited members of the local community and happy visitors of all ages. Expect a wonderfully big turnout — absolutely everyone will be incredibly curious about exactly how your massive landscape project turned out, and the immense relaxing fun it can easily offer. At this wonderful point, you can simply sit back and proudly watch your beautiful outdoor project be an absolute blast for loyal customers and corporate employees alike for many prosperous years to come.
Choose Professional Expertise for Your Commercial Landscape Design
At professional landscape design firms, we proudly provide top-tier property enhancement services to massive entertainment centers, historical museums, local churches, busy retail centers, corporate office parks, modern health and fitness centers, thrilling amusement parks, and much more to consistently attract happy families and easily keep them coming back again and again. Top industry experts have more than 30 years of invaluable, hands-on experience, making them the absolute best, most reliable outdoor environment providers in the world. They truly know exactly how to design functional, beautiful spaces that work perfectly for communities, customers, and highly successful businesses.
Expert designers can seamlessly customize all premium landscape products to perfectly fit any strict budget, limited available space, and diverse user requirements. Are you completely ready to actively add a stunning, high-quality commercial landscape design to your growing business’s daily customer experience? Confidently request a detailed, personalized quote from top professional landscaping firms today, or eagerly contact us right now for much more valuable, detailed information regarding your next big project.
