United Spinal’s Accessibility Services team is fielding access questions for New York’s new state-of-the-art major league ballparks.
By Rob Ingraham
“Our challenge is doing the right thing by the disabled community and our clients. Other consultants don’t have that dual obligation. That’s the tightrope we walk.” Tightropes notwithstanding, Dominic Marinelli, director of United Spinal Association’s fast- growing Accessibility Services department, is inspired by his team’s accomplishments and excited about its prospects for the future.
Accessibility Services is currently juggling “between 15 and 20″ major accessibility consulting projects while also coordinating professional accessibility training seminars across the country and serving on a number of important advisory committees developing barrier- free design requirements used by federal, state, and local officials.
“Our whole game is that we also work on developing accessibility standards and that gives us a perspective that I don’t think anybody else has,” Marinelli continues. “There are a couple of consultants that also work on this sort of co-development, but none that also represent disability organizations. Our combination is unique.”
Fair Ball
Two of the most visible projects are in United Spinal’s hometown: the new Yankee Stadium and the new Mets stadium, to be known as “Citi Field.” Both facilities, designed by HOK Sport, are expected to be state-of-the-art in stadium design, especially for accessibility features. Both are scheduled to be ready by Opening Day, 2009.
Marinelli recently joined representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on a tour of the work in progress in the South Bronx. Marinelli explained that, with a project the size of a major ballpark, the DOJ—which is responsible for enforcing parts of the Americans with Disabilities Act—routinely reviews plans and sends letters outlining their concerns based on the state of the project.
“Construction is currently at the stage where you can actually walk around in the building and see the product of your work, the ramps, the bathrooms, etc., there’s been major progress. The plans they [DOJ] had were the originals and those plans change very rapidly during the process, so they were a little behind the times in some of their comments, which were based on the age of the drawings they were looking at. We were able to resolve most of their concerns; for the majority we had responses that were very accurate, which made us feel pretty good. We toured the stadium and we got a real handle on anything else they were concerned about and we’re currently putting together a package to respond to anything that’s outstanding.” Marinelli adds that touring with regulators like the DOJ was a valuable learning experience for the team. “We do that quite a bit and we try to apply all of their concerns to other projects. What they’re concerned about at Yankee Stadium, they’re probably going to be concerned about at Citi Field, the new Mets stadium.”
“We know for example, that there’s a concern in their minds about ‘tiered’ restaurants. The original ADAAG [Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines] said, if you have different levels of a restaurant, they all have to be accessible. The revised ADAAG, which is final but not enforceable yet, has an allowance and some exceptions for stadiums. The original ADAAG didn’t fully appreciate that we were going to have restaurants on tiers in baseball stadiums that look over the field. They meant places like Denny’s.â„¢ So now the whole question is: Will the Dept. of Justice accept this new requirement which is what we built for? I think we’ve worked out a solution at Yankee Stadium. We’re still working on Citi Field.
A lot of this sort of thing is just trying to anticipate concerns and be creative with solutions,” Marinelli said.
Above and Beyond
“At Citi Field, the big issue is not the accessibility of the ballpark, it’s ‘Can you get to the ballpark?’ That’s because the Number 7 subway train station isn’t accessible. There’s no accessible route from the train station adjacent to Citi Field. That’s something United Spinal would be worried about, but other folks would just look at the accessibility of the ballpark proper. My favorite thing about our consulting initiative is that we’re always trying to go above and beyond.” Accessibility Services and the Mets are working with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to come up with a solution.
A key element in the design process has been regular meetings with members of the disability community, who were invited to the stadium and encouraged to share any and all suggestions, regardless of whether specific ideas exceeded existing city and federal accessibility requirements. Marinelli has high praise for the willingness of the Yankees to accommodate the requests of fans with disabilities. “I have to give it up to the Yankees. They’re pretty progressive guys,” he says. “I think that the vast majority of the suggestions received from meetings with the disabled community have been accepted by Yankee management.”
For example, in addition to assistive listening devices that fans with hearing disabilities will be able to pick up, the community wanted “loops” at ticket windows, he said. “Loops” refers to an “induction loop” sound amplification system that allows individuals with hearing aids equipped with a “telecoil sensor,” to receive a wireless transmission to their hearing aids, which then act as miniature loudspeakers, amplifying specific sounds instead of the indiscriminate amplification that frequently plagues hearing-aid wearers. The system is sometimes compared to a Wi-Fi system, the popular wireless internet connection developed for laptop computer users.
“Ticket distribution points are not required to have assistive listening devices, but it would be a nice feature if they were equipped with an audio amplifi cation system for a person with a hearing disability,” Marinelli says. “We have that at the new stadium. The Yanks did not balk.”
People with hearing disabilities also wanted captioning boards for public address announcements that could be seen from anywhere in the ballpark. “This is huge, it’s a big expensive item. And we’ve got them. At the first and the third base façade we’ll have dedicated captioning boards.”
“People from the disability community meetings also suggested electrical receptacles for medical apparatus in the wheelchair accessible locations. They’ve got them.”
“One of the things I don’t think we can deliver on, however, is a request from people with visual disabilities to sit in locations reserved for wheelchair users. They had a lot of arguments on why they would like those seats- -they’re dedicated, if you have a guide dog there’s more room, etc.—but at this point I just don’t see how we can do it because as far as the Department of Justice is concerned, wheelchair accessible locations are for wheelchairs. Period. So that’s also part of the tightrope we walk: We can’t suggest anything to the team that might get them in hot water with the DOJ.”
Compliance Specialists
For Yankee stadium, approximately 1.2% of the seating capacity would be dedicated to wheelchairs and their companions. “Federal law requires one percent, local Law 58, the New York City requirement, is a little bit more than that. We’ve tried to meet both the federal law and NYC law.” Of Yankee Stadium’s 50,000 seats, more than 530 will be wheelchair accessible locations. Of Citi Field’s 42,544 seats, 449 will be accessible.
Also, wheelchair seats are on a pedestal, so that when spectators stand up, the heads of individuals in wheelchairs will be at the same height as the standing spectators. In keeping with a growing trend in new construction to make everything accessible, all of the toilet rooms at the Stadium will be accessible, which eliminates the need for signage (i.e., the International Symbol of Accessibility) at every restroom.
“Citi Field has onsite parking—of Citi’s 5,639 spaces, 284 will be accessible and 68 will be van accessible—but the Yankees are building additional garages,” Marinelli says. “We’ve just started on the garage problem for Yankee stadium. DOJ has specific percentages of how many accessible parking spaces you must have compared to your total number of spaces. Further, a percentage of the accessible spaces have to be van-accessible, meaning the space has to have additional width to accommodate somebody with a lift. Also, the entry level of the garage [at Yankee Stadium] would have to provide adequate vertical clearance.”
Marinelli stresses that each project has unique set of challenges and his team is uniquely positioned to meet any of them. “I’m proud of our group,” he says.
Rob Ingraham is senior editor.
