Lee's Summit-Area Commercial Asphalt Paving
Retail, medical, and industrial pavement from Summit Fair to the Ward Road corridor — built over Jackson County clay by a company whose yard is in this city.
Tarmasters builds, resurfaces, and rebuilds commercial parking lots throughout Lee's Summit, Missouri. Over Wymore-Snead series expansive clay, the subgrade has to be engineered before anything is paved, and the section has to match where vehicles sit rather than just where they drive. Our yard is in Lee's Summit. Insured and bonded, paving since 2014.
Lots here fail where vehicles stop, not where they drive
Walk almost any retail lot around Summit Fair or Summit Woods Crossing and the damage is not spread evenly across the surface. The drive aisles are usually sound. The failure is concentrated in the queuing lanes, at the dumpster pads, along the delivery route, and in the first thirty feet inside the entrance — the places where weight sits still or changes direction.
That matters commercially, because it means a whole-lot resurfacing is often the wrong purchase. The right one is a heavier section in four or five specific places and a normal one everywhere else. Bids that price a lot by the square foot cannot see that distinction, so they either overcharge you for the aisles or under-build the lanes that were already failing.
Here is the map we work from, and the reasoning behind each line of it.
Where a Lee's Summit lot gives out first
Queuing and drive-through lanes
What you see
Ruts and washboard depressions in one wheel path, then water standing in them
Why it happens
Stationary load. Weight parked in the same line for minutes at a time creeps the binder sideways in a way moving traffic never does.
What we build instead
A stiffer mix through the lane, thicker binder course, and fall designed across the lane rather than along it — or concrete at the window itself.
Delivery routes and dumpster pads
What you see
Cracked and sunken pavement in a narrow strip that stops where the trucks stop
Why it happens
A refuse truck sets down on outriggers and lifts several tons over a small footprint, repeatedly, in exactly the same place.
What we build instead
Concrete pad at the container and the approach, with the asphalt section thickened along the route the truck actually takes.
Entrances off M-291, Ward Road, and Colbern Road
What you see
Shoving and rippling in the first thirty feet of the entry
Why it happens
Braking and turning loads from delivery and industrial traffic feeding the newer commerce parks put shear into a mat built for parking.
What we build instead
Full-depth rebuild of the entry radius with a heavier binder, tied properly into the public approach.
Curb lines in post-2010 developments
What you see
Settled curb and gutter, water running the wrong way, pavement pulling away from the back of curb
Why it happens
Fill placed over clay without proper compaction. It shows up five to ten years after the pour, well after everyone has moved on.
What we build instead
Reset the curb on a rebuilt base and correct the drainage before resurfacing — an overlay over a settled curb line just buries the problem.
Why Lee's Summit pavement fails — and how we prevent it
Jackson County clay swells when wet and shrinks when dry, creating seasonal heave cycles that crack pavement from below. Every Lee's Summit commercial project needs engineered subgrade prep—lime stabilization, geotextile separation fabric, or over-excavation—to prevent base failure within the first few years.
Then winter works on whatever the clay has already opened. Around 40 freeze-thaw cycles a year, frost to 36 inches, and 43 inches of annual rainfall mean water gets into a crack, freezes, widens it, and comes back next week to do it again. The ruts holding water in the Summit Fair queuing lanes are not just ugly — they are the reservoir feeding that cycle.
Which is why the order of work matters: subgrade first, drainage second, thickness third. Get those right and surface maintenance is genuinely maintenance. Get them wrong and it is cosmetics over a structural problem.
What we take on for Lee's Summit properties
New lot construction
Grade, base, and asphalt for new retail and office pads across the growing south and east sides.
Mill and overlay
The common answer on 1990s and 2000s US-50 corridor lots — once coring confirms the base can carry a new wear course.
Full-depth reconstruction
Where the base is gone, not just the surface. Sectional, so you rebuild what failed instead of the whole lot.
Truck courts and industrial pavement
Heavier sections for the commerce-center and Ward Road corridor properties taking daily semi traffic.
Striping, ADA layout, and maintenance
Fire lanes, accessible routes, and the restriping cycle that hospital, school, and senior-living lots run through faster than most.
Smaller problems have their own answers — patching and pothole repair, crack sealing, and milling where a lot has been overlaid until its drainage stopped working.
What a Lee's Summit paving job looks like
Four stages, and you know the dates for all of them before we start.
1
Assessment and cores
We walk the lot, follow the drainage, and core the pavement where the answer is not obvious from the surface. You get thicknesses and base condition, not an opinion.
2
Fixed estimate and phasing
Priced by section, with a written sequence: which rows close when, where deliveries route while they are closed, and how weather moves it.
3
Subgrade and base
Removal, then the unglamorous part: over-excavation or stabilization where the clay demands it, separator fabric, crushed limestone in compacted lifts, proof-rolled before paving.
4
Paving and layout
Binder and surface course rolled to density while hot, accessible routes set to grade during the work, then striping once it cures.
This one is our home market
Tarmasters is the asphalt division of Ford Concrete and Paving, and our shop is at 906 SE 7th Terrace, Ste B, Lee's Summit — inside the city these lots are in. That is not a marketing point so much as a scheduling one: short haul times, equipment that does not have to cross the metro to get back to your site, and a crew that can look at a problem the same week you call about it.
Kansas City–owned, insured and bonded, paving across the metro since 2014. What you get on a Lee's Summit commercial job is a measured fixed price, a phase-by-phase timeline, and a direct answer on whether your base can carry a new surface. Get in touch and we will come look at it.
Local yard
Tarmasters Asphalt Paving
906 SE 7th Terrace, Ste B
Lee's Summit, MO 64063
Serving Lee's Summit and nearby areas
Commercial pavement here concentrates along US-50 and M-291, with the industrial growth pushing out Ward Rd and Colbern Rd:
Summit Fair and Summit Woods Crossing
Regional retail with long queuing lanes and constant delivery traffic — the stationary-load problems live here.
Lee’s Summit Commerce Center
Newer industrial pavement and truck courts off Ward Road, built for axle loads rather than cars.
Lakewood Commercial District
Established neighborhood retail and office where lots are now on their second maintenance cycle.
Downtown Lee’s Summit
Small, tight municipal-adjacent lots where phasing around business hours is the whole job.
We work the surrounding cities on the same terms — commercial paving in Blue Springs, Independence, Kansas City, MO, and Overland Park.
Also worth a look: our commercial paving overview, everything we do in Lee's Summit, and the full list of cities we cover.
Lee's Summit lot owners ask us this
Our drive-through lane is rutted but the rest of the lot looks fine. Why?
Because the lane is carrying a different kind of load. Vehicles sitting still in the same wheel path push the asphalt binder sideways over time, which is what those ruts are — the material has moved, not worn away. Resurfacing the lane alone puts a new mat over the same problem. It needs a stiffer section through the queue, or concrete at the pickup window where the standing time is longest.
Can you tell whether our lot needs an overlay or a rebuild before we commit?
Yes, and on the older US-50 corridor lots it is worth doing properly. Cores pulled through the existing pavement show the real thickness and whether the base underneath is still competent. A lot that has already been overlaid twice often has no elevation left to work with, which changes the answer to milling first. You get that answer in writing before you spend anything on paving.
Our development is only about twelve years old and the curbs are settling. Is that normal?
It is common here, and it is not a curb problem. Several post-2010 Lee’s Summit developments were built on fill placed over Jackson County clay without being compacted in proper lifts. The fill consolidates, the curb drops, and drainage that was designed correctly stops working. Fixing it means rebuilding the base under the curb line, not replacing the concrete and hoping.
How often should a medical or school lot be restriped?
More often than a standard retail lot. Fire lanes, ambulance routes, accessible stalls, and drop-off zones carry constant traffic in the same markings, and they are the markings that matter most if anyone ever looks. Most of these properties are on a two- to three-year cycle, and it is cheap work — the expensive version is discovering a faded accessible route during a compliance review.
Free estimates across the Kansas City metro.
Driveways, parking lots, and repairs across the Kansas City metro, since 2014.
Call Now: (816) 789-0700Tarmasters Asphalt Paving
Lee's Summit, MO 64063 | Serving the Kansas City metro | Insured | Bonded