We Do Lines was recently featured in the Long Island Business News

Parking lot painters get in line

by Ambrose Clancy
Published: April 9, 2010

Thirty years ago, Rich Mailand was farming cabbage and string beans in Suffolk County when a cousin called and asked if he’d help out painting lines.

After a summer night running a painting machine, creating stalls in a parking lot at $3 a pop, Mailand figured the work beat farming. “Then it just snowballed,” Mailand said in the spacious Brookhaven Hamlet headquarters of Parkline Maintenance, which he owns and operates with his brother, Robert.

Since its humble launch, Parkline has grown into a full-service paving and property maintenance business specializing in anything and everything to do with parking lots. Today, the company has government contracts, handles large commercial projects and works as far afield as Florida on shopping centers and other paving business.

With the weather warming, the striping business will be hitting full stride soon, as Parkline and a handful of other big companies paint everything from the corner-deli lot with five stalls to the parking expanses of airports, shopping centers, universities and hospitals, which count thousands of spaces each.

Mailand and the big boys have their share of competition, notably those the trade calls “gypsies” or “pirates,” usually two guys with a hand-operated painting machine who work for far less than the standard $5 to $6 rate for a stall these days.

But you get what you pay for, professional stripers warn, so beware the pirate with a paint sprayer working out of a U-Haul trailer. Few carry insurance and fewer still will take the time to scrupulous clean a lot before striping. Others perform shoddy repair jobs with watered-down sealants.

“You shouldn’t hire some guy who’s moonlighting,” said Bob Lewis of Bay Shore’s DuMor Construction, which not only stripes but, like Parkline, maintains lots in every capacity.

Lewis’ firm maintains a $5 million umbrella insurance policy.

“It can be dangerous out there,” he said.

Although the National Parking Association reports that a majority of its members saw a loss in volume and revenue last year, lots still have to be striped.

The companies get a leg up from new environmental regulations that call for latex-based paints, which usually last but a single season. In years past, oil-based striping lasted three years, Mailand said.

Hoping to get some green from black Long Island lots this year is a new Connecticut-based franchisor, We Do Lines. The cleverly named company has sold six franchises around the country, but is still looking to hit pay dirt on Long Island. (Read More)