- Satisfaction Guaranteed
- Licensed & Insured
- LIC#CCC1333250
- FINANCING AVAILABLE
- SE FL (954) 773-5205
- SW FL (239) 900-4740
Cotect Roofing works with plaza owners, retail property managers and shopping center operators across five South Florida counties. Shopping center roofing is as much a scheduling problem as a construction one — your tenants have to keep trading while the work happens, and a roof project that closes a storefront costs more than the roof.
We’re a licensed and insured Florida roofing contractor (CCC1333250) and a certified Polyglass contractor across low-slope, coating, liquid-applied waterproofing and steep-slope systems. We handle repair, replacement, restoration coatings, scheduled maintenance and emergency response on retail property.
Call (954) 773-5205 for a free roof condition assessment on your plaza.
Any competent roofer can install a membrane. The difference on retail property is whether your tenants notice.
How we plan around a working center:
We phase by bay, not by building. Most plaza roofs can be sectioned so work moves across the property rather than shutting it down. You’ll get a sequence before we start, and we hold to it.
Parking and access are agreed in advance. Where equipment stages, where the dumpster sits, which spaces we lose and for how long. Nothing appears in your lot without you knowing.
Noise windows around your tenants’ hours. A restaurant’s lunch rush and a salon’s Saturday are not the times to be tearing off the roof above them. That’s schedulable if someone bothers to ask.
Tenant notice, in writing. We provide notice you can forward directly, so your tenants hear what’s happening before they hear the crew.
Debris control and a clean site daily. Retail customers walk under this work. Nails in the parking lot are how a roof project becomes a liability conversation.
Almost never in the open field of the membrane. Nearly always at the equipment.
Rooftop HVAC units and curbs — every bay has one, every one is a penetration, and every service call is someone on your roof who isn’t a roofer.
Restaurant grease exhaust — grease-laden vapor settles around exhaust fans and degrades roofing membranes over time. If you have a food tenant, the membrane around that fan is likely in worse condition than the rest of the roof, and it will leak into their kitchen or dining room first.
Unauthorized penetrations — signage anchors, satellite dishes, security cameras, conduit, solar racking. Cut by whoever installed the equipment, sealed with whatever they had in the truck.
Clogged drains and scuppers — ponding water that sits more than 48 hours after rain is excluded from most warranties, and South Florida rain fills a blocked drain fast.
Failed pitch pans and flashings — the small details around every penetration, which is where nearly every plaza leak we’re called to actually originates.
Worth knowing: unauthorized penetrations and repairs by non-authorized contractors are among the most common reasons commercial roof warranty claims are denied. If a tenant’s HVAC vendor cut into your membrane last year, your warranty may already be affected and nobody would have told you.
TPO and single-ply — the common specification for plaza reroofs. Reflective, weldable seams, and a cooling benefit that tenants paying their own electric will notice.
Modified bitumen and built-up — what most older South Florida centers already have. As a certified Polyglass contractor we install their modified bitumen systems with manufacturer-backed warranties.
Roof coatings and restoration — see below. Often the right answer for retail.
Tile and shingle on mansards and facades — the decorative pitched sections that front so many South Florida plazas. On tile, the underlayment beneath is the real waterproofing layer and reaches end of life long before the tile does. When that roof needs redoing, it gets redone: new underlayment and new, currently product-approved tile.
Metal — on canopies, entry features and standing-seam sections.
For a plaza owner specifically, a restoration coating is often the strongest option available.
No tear-off. Nothing is opened up, so there’s no risk of a rain event over an exposed tenant space, and no debris.
Far less disruption. Crews work above; tenants trade below.
A fraction of replacement cost, on a roof that still has structural life.
Reflective. Meaningful cooling reduction under the roof — which your tenants pay for and will notice.
Can be phased across a large center without a hard stop.
It’s not right for every roof. A saturated deck or a failing membrane needs replacement, and a coating over a roof that’s too far gone is money spent twice. Our assessment will tell you which one you have – including when the answer is that you need the full tear-off.
Retail property is exactly where a maintenance program earns its cost back, because the roof carries more equipment and more traffic than any other building type.
What we do twice a year:
Documentation you can actually file. Every visit produces a dated report with photographs. Owners commonly need clean records of roof maintenance for insurance renewals, for tenant communication, and for their accountant’s treatment of maintenance versus capital costs. We provide the documentation; how it’s applied is between you and your advisors.
Priority storm response. Properties under agreement go to the front of the queue after a named storm, when every plaza owner in South Florida is calling a roofer at once.
The roof isn’t the only water problem on a retail center. Entry canopies, covered walkways, parapet caps and second-floor decks leak just as often, and most roofing contractors won’t touch them.
We install Polyglass liquid-applied waterproofing on those surfaces — seamless membranes that handle the awkward geometry these areas actually have.
Why it matters here: the leak a tenant complains about is very often not coming from the roof at all. It’s coming from the parapet cap, the canopy-to-wall transition, or the walkway above. Those junctions are where scope falls between two contractors who each assume it belongs to the other — and where the same leak gets “fixed” three times.
A leak over a retail space is not a maintenance item. It’s a tenant with wet inventory, a closed bay, and a call to you.
We provide emergency tarping, damage documentation, and insurance-ready reporting – with priority given to properties under a maintenance agreement.
Call (954) 773-5205.
If you manage multiple centers, the roof is a recurring line item across your whole portfolio, whether Plaza, Retail, or Condo & HOA’s.
One point of contact across every property you manage. Consistent reporting in the same format, so comparing properties is straightforward. Portfolio-wide maintenance scheduling rather than a separate arrangement per plaza. Documentation formatted for owner reporting – the version you forward, not the version you rewrite.
Broward · Miami-Dade · Palm Beach · Martin · St. Lucie
Permitting and code differ across that footprint — HVHZ requirements in Broward and Miami-Dade, Florida Building Code Wind-Borne Debris Region provisions in Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie. We pull the permits and see the inspections through in all five.
Will my tenants have to close during the work? Almost never. Most plaza roofs can be phased bay by bay so work moves across the property rather than shutting it down, and coating or restoration systems avoid tear-off entirely. We agree the sequence, parking, staging and noise windows with you before we start, and provide written notice you can forward to tenants.
One of my tenants is a restaurant. Does that affect the roof? Yes, and it’s commonly missed. Grease-laden vapor from kitchen exhaust settles on the roof around the fan and degrades roofing membranes over time. The membrane near a restaurant exhaust is often in worse condition than the rest of the roof, and it will typically leak into that tenant’s space first. We inspect those areas specifically.
HVAC vendors go on my roof all the time. Is that a problem? It can be. Unauthorized penetrations and repairs by non-authorized contractors are among the most common reasons commercial roof warranty claims are denied. Our maintenance program includes a penetration audit that logs every rooftop penetration and flags anything that looks like unauthorized work, so it can be addressed while it’s still fixable.
Can we coat the roof instead of replacing it? Often, yes. If the roof is aging but structurally sound, a silicone or acrylic restoration coating can add years of service life at a fraction of replacement cost, with no tear-off and minimal disruption to tenants. It isn’t right for every roof — a saturated deck or failing membrane needs replacement, and we’ll tell you if that’s what you have.
Do you handle canopies, walkways and parapets, or just the roof? All of them. We install liquid-applied waterproofing on entry canopies, covered walkways, parapet caps and elevated decks. Many tenant leak complaints originate at those transitions rather than on the roof itself, which is why we look at the whole envelope.
What areas do you serve? Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties.
A Cotect team member will assess your roof and provide photo
documentation – whether or not you end up needing any work.
We’ll call to schedule at a time that works for you. No spam, no obligation.