When the St. Paul Saints throw out the first pitch at the new regional ballpark in Lowertown next year, they won’t just be doing so at one of the more advanced baseball stadiums in the country when it comes to accessibility for the disabled.
They’ll be playing in what may very well be THE most accessible professional sports playing field, bar none.
Dominic Marinelli, an accessibility consultant with the United Spinal Association in Queens, NYC, worked with the Ryan Cos. on the 7,000-seat Lowertown ballpark design with Ed Roether, a disability consultant based in Kansas City, Mo.
Marinelli’s resume includes consulting on the Twins Stadium (Target Field) and the new Vikings stadium, both of which are in Minneapolis, as well as the new Yankees stadium and Citi Fields, the home of the Mets.
Just how accessible will the new Saints stadium be? According to this Pioneer Press article, members of the Minnesota State Council on Disability are feeling pretty gung-ho.
Take the number of wheelchair spaces required under the Americans Disability Act and double them. Add in dozens of extra-wide seats for folks in walkers and the semi-ambulatory, none of which is actually required by the feds. Throw in elevators and unisex family bathrooms in addition to single-sex bathrooms with wheelchair stalls. The list goes on.
The Scoop caught up with Marinelli on Friday, and he had this to say about the Saints design, which is more than 60 percent complete:
“We did Target Field, and we’re working on the Vikings new stadium. But I’ve really enjoyed my time with the St. Paul Saints, and the team there. … It was cool. It was a very fun project. It still is a very fun project. The one thing I will always remember about them is we really exceed the minimum requirements. We almost double the minimum accessibility requirements for so many things. It really is fun to work on the design.”
“The way it was laid out, the Saints allowed us to reach out to the disabled community to get their feedback. We would hold meetings, and we continue to hold meetings on things. Because it’s more affordable than some major league events, the community wanted more wheelchair spaces. (Federal rules) require .5 percent (of all seats be wheelchair spaces). Last I looked, we were over 1 percent.”
“We were over double the number of wheelchair spaces that we’re required to provide, and I think that’s really motivated by the Saints. They charged the design team with creating the additional wheelchair space, and basically, Ed Roether got it so that every wheelchair space had a line of sight over anybody that stands up. … The wheelchair spaces have a perspective over anybody who stands up.”
Marinelli said the Ryan Cos. also integrated the wheelchair spaces with traditional seating for able-bodied fans: “If you were standing on the fields looking up into the stands, you’d be hard-pressed to pick out the wheelchair spaces. They’re blended into the seating.”
And as for the 180 seats with extra leg room, targeted to the semi-ambulatory…
“We stole that from California, the California building code. We don’t require it in Minnesota. It’s designed not for wheelchair users, but for users who have some ambulation and need to stretch out and need additional leg room. What is nice about that feature is a lot of time people who need additional ambulation will take the wheelchair space, which is basically an open space … because they don’t think they’ll have the leg room. Not only do we have more wheelchair space than we need, we also have some semi-ambulant locations, so they don’t need to take the wheelchair space.”
But wait, that’s not all. The new Saints ballpark will have seats with removable armrests here and there, mostly at the aisles, so folks who can’t fit into a normal chair can have some extra room. They make up about 5 percent of the total seating.
“We just counted them the other day. They’re integrated. If you needed the the extra room, you could just ask the ticket seller. It would be great if the airlines did it.”
How rare are some of these touches?
“I see the removable armrests. The semi-ambulant seating, I never see out of California.”
And the bathrooms. Let’s talk about the bathrooms…
“There is built throughout the stadium accessible, family unisex bathrooms, so you don’t have to bring your daughter, who is disabled, into the men’s room. There’s going to be wheelchair accessible compartments in the (traditional bathrooms) … but the accessible family toilet rooms, it really helps people if they have spouses or children with disabilities of the opposite sex.”
So what’s left to do now?
“Our work is maybe 40 or 50 percent done now that the base design is done. Now it’s fine-tuning the project. We’ll want to make sure we take into account fans with hearing disabilities, fans with visual disabilities. The Twin Cities have a very vocal community representing people with hearing disabilities and visual disabilities.”
“There’s this lady, Mary Bauer, and Mary Bauer represents the deaf and hard of hearing community. At the Twins ballpark, she put forth this idea that we had assistive listening devices at the ticket windows. … If they get close to that ticket window, they can benefit from the application of the ticket seller using their microphone. As a result of the Twins ballpark, it ultimately became required at ballparks throughout the country.”
“The simplified version is the microphone broadcasts a signal that is picked up by somebody’s hearing aid. This lady got this requirement in nationally. As we go forward in this project, those types of things will be very important.”
So the Twins stadium is pretty accessible for the disabled, as well?
“I gotta tell you, Mortenson (Construction) did a great job. My job is to do multiple inspections throughout the project, to make sure what we’re putting on paper is complied with. Most projects have sheets and sheets of issues. The Twins, they had like a sheet, which were minor things. It was really, really good.”