Light levels by zone
These are common design targets, not code minimums. Your engineer sets the final numbers from the IES recommended practice and any limits in your zoning.
| Zone | Typical target | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Front display row | About 50–75 fc | The cars you most want seen from the road |
| Display lot | About 30–45 fc | Shoppers browsing after hours |
| Customer and employee parking | About 20–25 fc | Safe walking, readable faces |
| Building entries and service drive | Bright, even, no glare | Where people and cameras need detail |
Ranges from FSG's dealership lighting guide. Lighting manufacturers publish similar tables that scale with how competitive the area is.
Color temperature and color rendering
Most dealers use 4000–5000 K on the lot: clean white that keeps paint colors honest. What matters as much is color rendering (CRI): a higher CRI keeps reds red and blues blue. Keep every fixture on the lot the same white. Mixed whites look like a repair job.
Even light, no glare
Bright spots and dark gaps make a lot look patchy and give people places to hide. Good layouts aim for even coverage and fixtures that put the light on the cars, not into drivers' eyes or neighbors' windows. Oklahoma City's sign code requires sign lighting to avoid glare toward adjacent properties (§ 59-16105.A.3), and your zoning or PUD may set site-lighting limits, so check before you raise output.
Security lighting after hours
Dealership security lighting is a scene, not a separate system:
- Keep entries, the perimeter and the front line lit all night.
- Dim the rest of the lot to a security level instead of turning it off.
- Light evenly where cameras look, so faces and plates are readable.
- Add motion-triggered boost in the back lot if you want it.
See lighting controls for how the scenes run.
LED retrofits: what's involved
An LED retrofit usually means new LED heads on your existing poles, sometimes with new photocells or controls, aimed and spaced to fix the dark gaps. The usual reasons dealers do it are lower energy and maintenance, better color on the cars, and the ability to dim after hours. Poles, bases and wiring get inspected first, because a new head on a failing pole is money wasted.
Who does what
Curbsight Lighting designs the lot, writes one quote and manages the job. A licensed electrician partner installs pole heads, controls and any 120-volt work. We install the low-voltage building outline, front-line accent and showroom lighting ourselves. You deal with one person the whole way through.
When lighting won't fix it
If the lot is full of the wrong inventory, more light just shows it better. And if a pole is failing structurally, that's a repair before it's a lighting project.
What we'd do at your lot
Start with the lighting audit at dusk: what's out, where the dark gaps are, which whites don't match. Then a plan that fixes the front line first, because that's where the sales are, and the rest of the lot on a schedule that fits your budget.
