An Office Building on Baymeadows Faces ADA Compliance
Scope of Work
Upgrade the parking lot and bring the whole property into ADA compliance.
ADA Compliance in General
ADA Compliance references the American Disabilities Act of 1990, wherein no company may discriminate against a person with any kind of disability. They must be able to compete on a level playing field. That means they must be able to access the building/complex the same way a non-disabled person would. The law impacts:
- Companies with a minimum of 15 employees
- Businesses operating for the benefit of the general public
- All state and local government agencies, and
- Any American with a disability, their friend, families and caregivers.
The specific language used is “Reasonable Accommodation”, and “equal access to goods and services” which generally means ramps and handicapped accessible door widths, bathrooms, etc. Ramps are the most visible of the ADA compliant changes, especially from the exterior of a building. Highly contrasting and clearly delineated crosswalks and parking lines are another important fact under the law. Signage needs to be considered, too, for those with either color blindness or another form of sight impairment.
In the Civil Engineering world, we think of ADA Compliance as more than mere accessibility. We consider all transition points. We look at all sidewalks and consider the width and incline of existing ramps in addition to looking for where to add ramps for greater ease of mobility. In the instance of our Baymeadows project, since we were upgrading the parking lot, that required us to add ramps. This then necessitated our looking at run-off and the drainage scheme in place.
