At a glance
Client: The Big Sky store of a national ski and outdoor retailer
Type: Retail remodel, structured cabling and rack build
Services: Cat6 pulls through open walls, conduit, and floor raceway; rack mounting; patch panel and floor box terminations; labeling and testing
Scale: 34 new Cat6 drops, four at each register station, home-run to a new wall-mounted rack in the tuning shop
Photos, before and after: the first three show the store mid-remodel. The rest show the cabling going in and the finished rack and floor boxes.
The constraint
A national ski and outdoor retailer was remodeling its Big Sky store, with its corporate IT team based out of state. The old network had grown piece by piece: Cat5e, unmanaged switches daisy-chained together on the back room wall, and a long run through the fire riser put in on a tight budget just to get the shop online. The new layout put register stations in the middle of the sales floor, far from any wall, and other trades were still working in the space.
The plan, in writing
We walked the store with the retailer's IT manager and put the plan in writing the next morning: all new Cat6, four drops at every register station (computer, card reader, receipt printer, and a spare), home-run to a proper rack in the back of house and laid out for separate staff and point-of-sale networks. Low-profile floor raceway carries the cable across the concrete to the stations.
Working through the pathway
The conduit and raceway came from the remodel's electrician, and not all of it landed where the plan called for. We worked through it on site, adjusting routes and pulling through open stud bays while the walls were still open, so the pull kept moving instead of waiting on a redo.
Two days on site
Two technicians mounted the new rack on the tuning shop backboard, pulled every run home, terminated the patch panel and the floor boxes at each station, and labeled every jack to match. Cable came down from the ceiling in organized bundles with a dressed service loop, and every run was tested before we left.
What's in place now
A new wall-mounted rack on the tuning shop backboard, patch panel terminated
34 new Cat6 drops, four at each register station, through floor raceway to floor boxes
Every jack labeled to match the patch panel
Every run tested, with photo documentation for the retailer's IT team
The result
A national retailer's Big Sky store now runs on a clean, labeled, properly racked cable plant built during the remodel, ready for the corporate IT team to bring its equipment online. And the retailer has a local crew that can handle a mid-remodel job in Big Sky.
Remodeling a store in Montana?
If you're opening or remodeling a retail location in Big Sky, Bozeman, or anywhere in southwest Montana, bring us in while the walls are open. We'll work to your standard and your equipment, on your schedule.
