VAPIANO RESTAURANT

Issue: Vertical accessibility to mezzanines in a restaurant.

Analysis: The applicant is requesting a waiver from providing vertical accessibility to an existing 450 square foot mezzanine that will seat 32 customers. The accessible first floor dining area will provide a total of 258 seats. The project also includes construction of a new, 850 square foot mezzanine that will house an office, a prep room, storage and electrical room. According to the applicant the second mezzanine will have fewer than five employees working there and is not open to the public. The total project cost will be $800,000 and the applicant estimates it would cost a additional $75,000 to install an elevator to the dining mezzanine.

Project Progress:

The project is under design.

Items to be Waived:

Vertical accessibility to two mezzanines, as required by Section 553.509, Florida Statutes.

553.509 Vertical accessibility. Nothing in Sections 553.501-553.513 or the guidelines shall be construed to relieve the owner of any building, structure or facility governed by those sections from the duty to provide vertical accessibility to all levels above and below the occupiable grade level regardless of whether the guidelines require an elevator to be installed in such building, structure or facility, except for:

(1) Elevator pits, elevator penthouses, mechanical rooms, piping or equipment catwalks and automobile lubrication and maintenance pits and platforms;

(2) Unoccupiable spaces, such as rooms, enclosed spaces and storage spaces that are not designed for human occupancy, for public accommodations or for work areas; and

(3) Occupiable spaces and rooms that are not open to the public and that house no more than five persons, including, but not limited to equipment control rooms and projection booths.

Waiver Criteria: There is no specific guidance for a waiver of this requirement in the code. The Commission’s current rule, authorized in Section 553.512, Florida Statutes, provides criteria for granting waivers and allows consideration of unnecessary or extreme hardship to the applicant if the specific requirements were imposed.