Commercial Locksmith in Kansas City, MO

Kansas City's business districts and their doors

Crossroads Arts District. Renovated warehouse and industrial buildings here are shared by craft breweries, offices, restaurants and galleries. A converted warehouse often puts several businesses behind one street entrance, each suite on its own lock, sometimes with a rear or loading door as well. When a tenant moves out, the open question is how many keys to the shared entrance left with them.

Country Club Plaza. J.C. Nichols opened the Plaza in 1923, and it now covers 14 blocks. A storefront there may have a customer entrance and a stock room or back-of-house door, and keys and codes for each tend to spread across managers, shift staff and outside contractors.

River Market. This district, once Westport Landing and home to City Market since 1857, now has restaurants and shops in former riverfront warehouses, with lofts in the same buildings. A ground-floor business may share a building with residents, so the building owner may control the street door while the business controls only its own.

Staff turnover and keys

Restaurants, galleries and shops run on shifts, so keys change hands far more often than in a single-owner home. Common approaches:

• rekey the affected cylinders when someone leaves with a key, rather than waiting for the lease to end
• set up a master key system so managers carry one key and staff carry keys only to their areas
• use restricted keyways, whose blanks are controlled and not cut at hardware counters
• fit a keypad or access control on a stock room or office door that needs a record of entries

What to include in a commercial request

1. business name, district and street address or cross streets
2. the number of doors, and which are shared with other tenants
3. who owns the building, and whether the lease allows lock changes
4. any master key system or restricted keys already in place

Turnover on a single door is covered under lock rekeying. The commercial locksmith page describes the service in general, and the Kansas City page describes each district in more detail.