A roof that makes a statement

By Jesse Sanchez. 

How one roofer turned an old Kmart into a patriotic landmark visible from the sky. 

When Tim Garrison, founder of River City Roofing Co., saw a rooftop American flag design nearly a decade ago, the image stuck with him. “That was a really cool project,” he said on an episode of the AskARoofer podcast. Years later, he brought that vision to life atop his own company’s 72,000-square-foot warehouse in Peoria, Illinois. 

The massive flat roof, once part of an abandoned Kmart, features a fully functional, large-scale American flag made from red, white and blue TPO membrane. A durable roofing material typically used in commercial projects. But this wasn’t a standard installation. 

Tim explained that inspiration for the custom project came from a 2015 story about Interstate Roofing’s flag design in Colorado. “So that sparked me to do some stuff with red TPO on white roofs a few times,” he said, citing earlier attempts with company logos and signage. But the flag was different; it was personal. 

“We saved that last section [of the roof], which was a perfect section closest to the airport,” he said, noting how the location near Peoria Airport and a National Guard facility influenced the decision. “We get some military planes almost weekly over top of it.” 

But building a custom rooftop design isn’t as simple as swapping out colors. “Getting the red and blue material in hand was probably the toughest,” Tim recalled, explaining that supply chain issues during COVID made acquiring the right shades especially challenging. Even when material was available, design complexity presented another hurdle: “Laying the stars, there’s a flag calculator you can find online. It helped us tremendously.” 

Despite those obstacles, the project was completed just in time for Veterans Day. The flag, visible from the air, became more than a patriotic gesture; it doubled as a marketing asset. “It serves as a billboard,” Tim said. “If you’re sitting on a window seat flying into a city, most people are raising the windows, looking out.” 

While the aesthetics are striking, Tim is clear that the real value lies in branding. “You need the roof anyway. How much more is it to stand out?” He noted that custom roof designs, using color TPO or coatings, are a largely untapped opportunity. “I fly a lot. I’m all over every week and you don’t see them very often.” 

For Tim, the project was as much experimentation as execution. “I always do trials on my own,” he said. “Now we can confidently go out and offer designs or something like that on your TPO roof.” 

Read the transcript or Listen to the podcast to learn more about how Tim transformed a forgotten rooftop into a bold patriotic statement and why custom roof designs are redefining visibility and branding!