The most useful hour in a commercial grounds program is not a service visit. It is the hour spent walking the property in the fall, after the growing season has shown what held up and before the first snow covers what did not.
Tom Rosensteel, General Manager of Twin City Outdoor Services (TCOS), treats that walk as the point where next year is decided. TCOS has served commercial properties across the Twin Cities Metro since 1997, and the grounds division is where Rosensteel draws the sharpest line between maintenance that keeps a site tidy and project work that changes what the site is worth.
Grounds Maintenance Is Project Work, Not a Visit Count
Most grounds contracts are written around frequency: how many visits, how many cuts, how many cleanups. Rosensteel's view is that frequency describes the least important part of the program. Turf recovers from almost anything. The parts of a property that do not recover on their own are the planting beds, the trees, the rock and mulch areas, the retaining walls, and the decorative outdoor spaces where tenants actually spend time.
Those are the assets that carry the property's first impression and most of its landscape replacement cost, and they are the assets that get the least attention in a contract built around visits. A bed that has thinned out, a wall that has started to lean, a tree that dropped a limb in an August storm: none of these are handled by showing up more often. They are handled by someone noticing, deciding what it means, and putting it on a list.
Anyone can show up during a snowstorm. That is expected. What builds trust are the proactive meetings in preparation for the next season where you walk the property together and plan for the months and years ahead.Tom Rosensteel
What He Is Actually Looking At
Rosensteel does not walk a property with a checklist so much as with an order of priority. Safety and structure come first, water second, appearance last, because the first two decide the size of the third.
- Retaining walls and hardscape. Any wall that has moved, bulged, or opened a joint since spring is a structural question, and fall is the last chance to address it before frost gets into the gap and finishes the job. Steps, seat walls, and paver areas get the same read: heave, settlement, and loose units are winter hazards as well as spring repairs.
- Trees. Dead wood, cracked unions, and limbs over parking, walkways, and roof lines are looked at before the leaves come down and hide them, and again after, when the structure is visible. Storm damage from the summer that was never cleaned up properly is common and rarely on anyone's list.
- Beds, mulch, and rock. Beds are read for what is worth keeping, what has failed, and what is being slowly buried by mulch build-up or displaced rock. Plant material that did not make it through a Minnesota summer is not going to make it through a Minnesota winter either, and the fall walk is where the replacement scope gets written rather than discovered in May.
- Where the snow will go. This is the read that most grounds programs skip entirely. Every snow pile needs a home, and the wrong home is a bed, a young tree, a wall face, or a decorative space that will spend April under salt-laden meltwater. Rosensteel plans stacking locations in the fall, when the landscape is still visible, so the winter crew is protecting the summer investment rather than burying it.
- Last winter's damage. Salt burn along walk edges, browned-out plantings at drive aisles, and turf that never came back where piles sat are evidence, not blemishes. They show exactly where last year's winter plan and this year's landscape budget collided, and they change both.
Turning the Walk Into a Project List
The reason the walk matters is what comes out of it. In Rosensteel's program the output is not a report that describes the property. It is a prioritized list of project work with a recommendation attached to each item: repair, replace, remove, or leave and watch.
That list does three things for a property manager. It converts a vague sense that the grounds look tired into a set of decisions with a reason behind each one. It separates what has to happen before freeze-up from what can wait for spring budget. And it gives ownership something to approve in the fall, when the capital conversation is happening, rather than a surprise in the spring when the season is already booked.
Problem-solution, that is how we approach every client relationship. Identify the issue, present the fix, execute, and follow up. Property managers want a partner they can rely on, not one who disappears after the contract is signed.Tom Rosensteel
Why the Same Crew Should Do the Reading
A recurring theme in how Rosensteel runs TCOS is that the people responsible for the summer landscape and the people responsible for the winter site should be the same operator, because the decisions in one season are the bill in the other.
A snow operator who will never see the property in June has no reason to protect a bed line or a young tree. A landscape operator who leaves in October has no reason to think about where a season's worth of snow will sit. When one team owns both, the fall walk becomes the handoff between them, and the property gets a plan for the whole year instead of two plans that ignore each other.
I surround myself with people who are the best at what they do, in snow, in surface work, in landscaping. My job is not to be the expert in every trade. My job is to build the team, set the standard, and hold everyone accountable to it.Tom Rosensteel
What a Property Manager Should Ask This Fall
- Has anyone walked the property with me since the growing season ended? If the answer is no, the winter plan is being made without knowing what it has to protect.
- Where are the snow piles going, and what is underneath them? The location of every pile should be a decision, not a habit.
- Which walls, steps, and hardscape areas moved this year? Anything that shifted needs a call before frost, not after.
- What died, and what is the plan for it? A bed that failed in August should have a replacement scope in October.
- What did last winter cost the landscape, and what changes because of it? Salt damage and pile damage are feedback. A program that does not adjust to them will repeat them.
- Is the list prioritized, and does each item come with a recommendation? A list of observations is not a plan. A list of decisions is.
Excellence, in everything, is what we do at TCOS.Tom Rosensteel
TCOS operates commercial grounds maintenance alongside snow and ice management, concrete and surface restoration, and parking lot maintenance across the Twin Cities Metro, working with property managers, facilities directors, and commercial real estate professionals. The company's involvement with organizations including SIMA, BOMA International, and IFMA reflects its investment in professional development and industry standards.