Tool Storage Mobile Shelving Case Study: Salt Lake City, Utah

How Salt Lake City Public Utilities added mechanical mobile shelving with locking doors for tool storage at its West Temple facility.

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Front-facing mobile shelving carriage ends with handwheels in a public utilities tool storage room

Customer

Salt Lake City Public Utilities

Location

1530 South West Temple, Salt Lake City, UT 84115

Product

Mechanical mobile shelving with locking doors and laminate end panels

Application

Tool storage

About the project

Salt Lake City Public Utilities operates water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure across the city, and its West Temple facility needed a secure, space-efficient way to store tools used by field and maintenance crews.

Material Handling USA supplied a mechanical mobile shelving system with two dividers per shelf, laminate end panels, and hinged locking doors on the stationary shelving run against the wall. The system was quoted on the State of Utah cooperative contract and installed on a twin ramp, with delivery and installation running about six to eight weeks.

Project scope at a glance

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Two dividers per shelf

Shelf dividers keep tools, parts and small equipment separated and easy to find by category rather than piled together.

🔒

Locking doors on the stationary run

Two hinged, locking doors were added to the shelving fixed against the wall, securing higher-value tools separately from the rest of the system.

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Laminate end panels

A finished laminate surface on the carriage ends gives the system a clean look suited to a shared utility maintenance space.

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Twin ramp, no sub-floor

The twin ramp approach avoided a raised sub-floor, keeping the room at grade for tool carts and foot traffic.

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Utah cooperative contract pricing

Quoted on the State of Utah contract, letting the department purchase without a separate bid process.

✓

Installed by our crew

Freight, inside delivery, full installation and packaging removal were included.

The situation

A public utilities department’s tool room has to serve field crews on a rotating schedule: tools go out in the morning and come back at the end of a shift, and everything has to be easy to find and easy to secure. Static shelving forces a choice between wide aisles that waste floor space or narrow aisles that are hard to work in with a tool cart.

Locking part of the system also mattered here. Not every tool in a maintenance room needs the same level of security, but higher-value items do, and building that into a shelving system’s design is more practical than adding a separate cabinet.

Mobile shelving addressed both: dense storage in a compact footprint, with locking doors built into the section that needed them.

Tool boxes and maintenance parts bins on a mobile shelving shelf

What Material Handling USA supplied

The system Material Handling USA installed uses mechanical handwheel-driven carriages with two shelf dividers per section, letting crews organize tools and small parts by type rather than stacking them loosely. Laminate end panels finish the carriage fronts, and two hinged, locking doors secure the stationary shelving run built against the wall.

The system was installed on a twin ramp rather than a sub-floor, keeping the tool room at grade for cart traffic, and was quoted and purchased on the State of Utah cooperative contract.

System layout

The layout drawing below shows the system as installed: mechanical mobile shelving carriages on floor rail with the locking-door sections marked separately from the open shelving runs. Dimensions and the exact aisle count are specific to this room and are shown for illustration of how a mobile shelving system is planned before it is built.

Mobile shelving layout drawing for a public utilities tool storage room, Salt Lake City Utah

What the department gained

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More tool storage in less space

Mobile shelving consolidated tool storage into a smaller footprint than static shelving would have required.

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Built-in security where it was needed

Locking doors on the stationary run secure higher-value tools without a separate cabinet or safe.

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Organized by category

Shelf dividers keep tools and parts sorted, cutting the time crews spend searching before a job.

✓

No sub-floor construction

The twin ramp kept the tool room at grade, which shortened the installation and avoided a floor modification.

Choosing mobile shelving for a tool storage room

	Static shelving aisles	Mechanical mobile shelving
Floor space per unit of storage	One aisle open per row, all the time	One aisle open at a time, on demand
Security	Requires a separate cabinet or cage for sensitive items	Locking doors can be built into specific sections, as on this project
Access speed	Immediate, every aisle	One handwheel turn to open the needed aisle
Best fit	Rooms with constant multi-person access	Tool and maintenance rooms accessed by one or two people at a time
Organization	Whatever the fixture allows	Shelf dividers sort tools and parts by category

Mobile shelving sales and service across Utah

Material Handling USA is based in Salt Lake City and works with municipal and utility departments throughout the Wasatch Front. Utah public agencies can purchase mobile shelving on the State of Utah cooperative contract.

Related pages: mobile shelving in Utah, the Salt Lake City law firm file room case study, and mobile shelving for South Valley Water Reclamation and South Jordan City Hall.

Call (801) 328-8788 to have a maintenance or tool storage room measured for mobile shelving.

Frequently asked questions

Can mobile shelving include locking sections?

Yes. Hinged, locking doors can be added to specific sections of a mobile shelving system, as was done for the stationary run against the wall on this project, without locking the entire system.

Is mobile shelving practical for a tool room?

Yes. Shelf dividers organize tools and parts by category, and mechanical carriages keep the room dense without wide static aisles, which suits a shared maintenance tool room well.

Does mobile shelving need a raised floor?

Not always. This project used a twin ramp specifically to avoid a sub-floor, which kept the room at grade for cart traffic.

Can Utah municipal utility departments buy on state contract?

Yes. This project was quoted on the State of Utah cooperative contract, which most Utah public agencies can use to purchase without a separate bid.

How long does an installation like this take?

This project’s delivery and installation ran about six to eight weeks from order.

Do locking doors add much to the cost of a mobile shelving system?

Locking doors are typically added only to the sections that need them, as on this project, rather than the entire system, which keeps the added cost proportional to what is actually secured.

Can an existing mobile shelving system be retrofitted with locking doors later?

In many cases yes, if the carriage design supports it. It is simpler to specify at the time of purchase, which is why we ask about security needs during the initial site visit.

Need secure, space-efficient tool storage?

Send us your room dimensions and what needs to be secured, and we will lay out a mobile shelving system with locking sections where you need them. Utah installs and service from our Salt Lake City base.

Request a Quote Call (801) 328-8788