The Brentwood firehouse will be featured in a story on KSDK news on Thursday evening, Aug. 30, a Brentwood resident reports.
Brentwood resident Barry Williams said KSDK plans to broadcast a story about a problem at Brentwood’s new fire station. He said resident Rich Emery was interviewed for the story.
Williams said he thinks the story will be about the fact that the firehouse, which opened in 2011, doesn’t comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Brentwood city attorney, Kevin O’Keefe, told the board of aldermen in a May meeting that the building doesn’t comply because it was built with no elevator to the second floor. The aldermen discussed buying property next to the firehouse to build an elevator. The cost of the property for a new elevator was estimated to be $200,000.
Williams said the coverage will be on KSDK Channel 5 at 6:00 p.m. Update: See the story here.
See also:
Attorney says Brentwood’s firehouse isn’t ADA compliant; fixing it promises to be expensive
I seem to recall that the city wanted to buy the property next door at the time the firehouse was built, but that the owner was asking for an inflated price for a dilapidated property. I think this whole controversy about the elevator is an example of regulation gone wild. The aim of the ADA is extremely worthwhile. However, common sense should prevail in it’s implementation. This reminds me of when all the street signs were rredone to initialize only the first letter. Previously street signs were all in capital letters and were much more readable.
To answer everyone’s question regarding access to the second floor of a firehouse, here are the facts:
1) The federal building code does NOT exclude firehouses.
2) The building was built with public money, and therefore is required to have complete accessibility to all levels.
3) ‘Everyone’ has the right to visit the firehouse that ‘they’ paid for.
4) These codes were in place when the firehouse was designed.
5) The City of Brentwood violated it’s own ordinance (Section 400.1470 & Section 400.1550) when they built the firehouse without any parking for the firefighters and visitors.
Thank you!
Who was the general contractor on this project?
I saw this on Channel 5 news. It makes the city look like fools. I also agree with why does a person with physical limitations need to get to the second floor of a fire house?? The purchase price for the property is $195,000. There will be demolition costs, architectural fees, and building fees. This elevator will wind up costing upwards of a half million dollars. Maybe Brentwood can re-coup some of the costs by making it coin operated.
They knew it was not complient in the planning stage. How did they get a permit???? Oh yah it is the City of Brentwood …. the rules don’t apply, if you know people.
Ummm, why exactly does a person with physical limitations NEED to get to the second floor of a firehouse again? Did I miss something?
They need to get up there so they can slide down the pole I guess. World gone mad.
We call this “inclusion”.
Rights of the individual trump the overall good of society.
The ADA is for the good of society as everyone benefits. I wouldn’t be so quick to drag the ADA since this is squarely Brentwood’s fault. Sure it would have cost a little more (relatively speaking) to add an elevator in the planning stage but we’re talking peanuts compared to a proposed retrofit.
No need to put stank on the word inclusion as it is a good thing. Without inclusion, the world would have discarded Steven Hawkins and so many others like him.
In this case it seems that spending more public money for very little gain isn’t doing anyone any good. I would guess that when the new fire station was in the planning stage the designers were aware of the ADA codes but didn’t see them as necessary, at least not as far as the second floor is concerned, thus saving money (benefit to the society as a whole).
“I would guess that when the new fire station was in the planning stage the designers were aware of the ADA codes but didn’t see them as necessary, at least not as far as the second floor is concerned, thus saving money” – Which is why the blame lay squarely with Brentwood. A proposal that ignores or “forgets” about the ADA should not have been given an consideration. As someone else stated in the comments, why did the city grant the permit if the proposal was not compliant?
“Peanuts” is a bit of an understatement. Accounting for the installation, maintenance, and operating costs, elevators cost ALOT.
As I stated, relative cost. The cost of installing an elevator retroactively compared to the cost during the planning phase.
Since it is a public gov facility they need to meet ADA requirements, every building does. I also hear they put their conference room on the second level which does not help their. What they should do, should have done, and only need to do is install chair lift called a limited use limited access lift (LULA) in lieu of a full blown elevator. They also do not talk about the leaky roof problem and electrical grounding problem they have had. They need to replace their plans reviewer and hire a third party life safety fire protecting engineering firm who would have caught this in the early architectural design phase. They should have hired Code Consultants Inc., St. Louis’s own fire protection and life safety experts.