Issue: Vertical accessibility to the second floor office area of an entertainment facility.
Analysis: The applicant is requesting a waiver from providing an elevator to the 2,750 square foot second floor of a 22,275 square foot building undergoing a $2,000,000 alteration. The facility is a wax museum which provides exhibits on the first level and the area on the second floor is used for employee access areas only, including office, break room and locker facilities. According to the building department, the area in question will accommodate more than five persons and requires an elevator. The applicant stated there is insufficient room to install an elevator and requested the use of a platform lift to provide vertical accessibility. Estimates of $54,000-58,000 for a lift and $163,121 for an elevator were submitted.
Project Progress:
The project is under construction.
Items to be Waived:
Installation of an elevator to provide access to the second level of an amusement center.
553.509: Vertical accessibility - Nothing in sections 553.501-553.513 or the guidelines shall be construed to relieve the owner of any building, structure or facility governed by those sections from the duty to provide vertical accessibility to all levels above and below the occupiable grade level, regardless of whether the guidelines require an elevator to be installed in such building, structure or facility, except for:
(1) Elevator pits, elevator penthouses, mechanical rooms, piping or equipment catwalks and automobile lubrication and maintenance pits and platforms;
(2) Unoccupiable spaces, such as rooms, enclosed spaces and storage spaces that are not designed for human occupancy, for public accommodations or for work areas; and
(3) Occupiable spaces and rooms that are not open to the public and that house no more than five persons, including, but not limited to equipment control rooms and projection booths.
Waiver Criteria: There is no specific guidance for a waiver of this requirement in the code. The Commission’s current rule, authorized in Section 553.512, Florida Statutes, provides criteria for granting waivers and allows consideration of unnecessary or extreme hardship to the applicant if the specific requirements were imposed.