Commercial Locksmith in Greensboro, NC

Downtown buildings along Elm Street

The Downtown Greensboro Historic District follows Elm Street from the 100 block of North Elm to the 600 block of South Elm. Its oldest commercial buildings are 1880s brick, usually three stories. In the 1930s and 1940s owners commonly took a floor or two off older buildings and refaced them completely, so storefronts on one block can differ by decades.

For locks, one address can involve several kinds of door, each with its own hardware and often its own key holder:

• the storefront entrance the public uses
• a rear door for staff and deliveries
• a separate street door and stair to upper floors, which may be leased to a different tenant

In a building with more than one tenant, find out which doors the landlord controls before changing anything. A lock on a shared door affects everyone who uses it.

Shops in former houses

College Hill's 1993 National Register nomination records houses converted to stores on Spring Garden and South Mendenhall streets, largely in response to student demand. A business in a former house inherits residential doors: a front door, a back door and sometimes a side door, laid out for a household rather than for staff and customers. Decide which door staff use, which takes deliveries and which stays locked, then fit hardware to those roles.

Keys after staff or tenants leave

Keys spread through a business: managers, shift leads, cleaners and the previous tenant. When someone with a key leaves, or a new tenant takes the space, rekeying the affected cylinders retires the old keys without new hardware. A master key system lets a manager open every door while each staff key opens only its own, and a log of who holds which key makes the next change easier.

Details for a commercial request

Give the address or the Elm Street block, the doors involved and how many locks each has, who controls the locks (owner, landlord or tenant) and whether keys are missing or someone has left. North Carolina Locksmith Pros takes service requests from homes, businesses and drivers in Greensboro. Business work is covered on the commercial locksmith page.