ADA Compliance

The American Disabilities Act requires that certain businesses be handicap accessible. FTW Corp understands the regulations and design standards to make buildings comply with the ADA. If your commercial location does not already have these measures built into it, we will help you meet these standards.

What is the American with Disabilities Act – The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires state and local governments, businesses and non-profit organizations to provide goods, services and programs to people with disabilities on an equal basis with the rest of the public.

Some people think that only new construction and alterations need to be accessible and that older facilities are “grandfathered,” but that’s not true. Because the ADA is a civil rights law and not a building code, older facilities are often required to be accessible to ensure that people with disabilities have an equal opportunity to participate.

Requirements for Places of Public Accommodation

Businesses and non-profit organizations that serve the public must remove architectural barriers when it is “readily achievable” to do so; in other words, when barrier removal is “easily accomplishable and able to be carried out without much difficulty or expense.” The decision of what is readily achievable is made considering the size, type, and overall finances of the public accommodation and the nature and cost of the access improvements needed. Barrier removal that is difficult now may be readily achievable in the future as finances change. Public accommodations’ ADA obligations for barrier removal are in the Department of Justice’s ADA Title III regulations 28 CFR Part 36.304.

Priorities for Accessibility according to the Department of Justice ADA Title III regulations

Priority 1 – Accessible approach and entrance

Priority 2 – Access to goods and services

Priority 3 – Access to public toilet rooms

Priority 4 – Access to other items such as water fountains and public telephones

What are Public Accommodations?

Under the ADA public accommodations are private entities that own, lease, lease to or operate a place of public accommodation. This means that both a landlord who leases space in a building to a tenant and the tenant who operates a place of public accommodation have responsibilities to remove barriers.

 

A place of public accommodation is a facility whose operations affect commerce and fall within at least one of the following 12 categories:

1) Places of lodging (e.g., inns, hotels, motels, except for owner-occupied establishments renting fewer than six rooms)

2) Establishments serving food or drink (e.g., restaurants and bars)

3) Places of exhibition or entertainment (e.g., motion picture houses, theaters, concert halls, stadiums)

4) Places of public gathering (e.g., auditoriums, convention centers, lecture halls)

5) Sales or rental establishments (e.g., bakeries, grocery stores, hardware stores, shopping centers)

6) Service establishments (e.g. , laundromats, dry-cleaners, banks, barber shops, beauty shops, travel services, shoe repair services, funeral parlors, gas stations, offices of accountants or lawyers, pharmacies, insurance offices, professional offices of health care providers, hospitals)

7) Public transportation terminals, depots, or stations (not including facilities relating to air transportation)

8) Places of public display or collection (e.g., museums, libraries, galleries)

9) Places of recreation (e.g., parks, zoos, amusement parks)

10) Places of education (e.g., nursery schools, elementary, secondary, undergraduate, or postgraduate private schools)

11) Social service center establishments (e.g., day care centers, senior citizen centers, homeless shelters, food banks, adoption agencies)

12) Places of exercise or recreation (e.g., gymnasiums, health spas, bowling alleys, golf courses).

 

 

For services we provide please view Adaptations & Modifications, Wheel Chair Ramps & Lifts, and Remodeling & Renovations.