Officials seeking to make campus buildings more accessible hit roadblocks in buildings built before ADA

The old age of some UA buildings is presenting obstacles to fulfilling disabled accessibility goals, even while more modern and accessible building are under construction.

The ability to enter the building and to access a minimum amount of the ground floor are the minimum guidelines UA uses for disabled access under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

By that definition, eight UA buildings ÷ or 15% of all campus structures ÷ are not accessible to disabled people, according to Disability Resource Center physical access coordinator John Mosser.

Arizona Stadium and Frank Sancet Field are among the eight buildings ÷ and even more public UA spaces ÷ that are not accessible, according to the DRCās Accessibility Map.

The Park Student Union, built in the 1960s, is supposed to begin construction soon to make the second floor accessible. Disabled students currently have to take a private elevator to reach the second floor.

"To be honest with you, there would be nothing I could do without a major construction project for that building," Mosser said.

In some of the older residence halls, like the ones located on North Campus Drive, it would be impossible to make the floors above the ground level accessible because of their structure, Mosser said.

So a student in a wheelchair cannot visit friends who live on the third floor of Yuma, Gila or Maricopa halls.

There are also a number of buildings on campus like Social Sciences, where the physically disabled must enter through a back door, often because there is no ground floor accessibility from the main entrance.

In the case of the Social Science building, the main door enters onto a stairway between floors.

In the Administration building, the inside button designed to open the door for those in wheelchairs was out of order Monday. This breakdown hits at a time when UA students come to the building en masse to pay tuition.

The Americans with Disabilities Act necessitates that UA provide reasonable accommodations for the disabled, which includes making its facilities accessible to the physically disabled.

According to the act, a qualified disabled person is defined as someone who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits at least one major life activity, a record or history of a disability or is perceived as having a disability.

While what qualifies as disabled is fairly difficult to dispute, interpreting whether or not the UA is compliant is another ballgame.

"In terms of accessibility, the U of A is very compliant," said Sue Kroeger, the UAās ADA Compliance Officer and Director of the Disability Resource Center.

"āAccessibleā means that someone has to have access as long as (they) have a disability covered by ADA," Kroeger said.

But Mosser, who works in Kroegerās office, has a different take on what it means for UA to be accessible.

"āAccessibleā means something different for different people. Some need more and some less," Mosser said. "I try to target the mid range."

UA officials must make the UA campus accessible per the guidelines presented by the ADA coupled with the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, since nearly all universities receive Federal Financial Aid in some form, said Natalie Franklin, intake specialist/legal assistant for the Arizona Center for Disability Law.

In the ideal world, Mosser said, UA would use "universal access" as the standard, which means everyone would enter through the same door, and whether or not someone is disabled would not be noticeable.

In reality, though, the numerous old buildings on campus make universal access difficult.

"People want to go into the front door, but it is not always feasible," Mosser said.

"Obviously, some of the buildings that are getting old have a list of problems, which are generally high on the list of priorities," Kroeger said.

There are generally few accessibility problems with the newer buildings on campus, except for the Student Union Memorial Center, where automatic door openers were not installed properly. Some of those doors will be fixed retroactively when Phase II of construction is done, Mosser said.

Members of the campus community who have comments about accessibility can direct them to members of the DRC via an online form at http://drc.arizona.edu.