Retail and Entertainment

This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Retail and Entertainment and Practice Management Member Conversations .
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Does anyone have any specific recommendations for preventing vehicular obstructions at required means of egress?  For example, in large retail centers, many times the rear or sides of buildings have egress doors which exit directly onto pavement (no curb, no elevated stoop).  There is nothing (short of common sense) to prevent a vehicle from parking alongside the exit door thereby preventing occupants from using that door as a means of egress.  Our firm typically provides bollards for this scenario on new construction, but there is nothing specific in the code (that I can find) which REQUIRES anything.  Convincing an owner of an existing facility to put bollards in at a door that's been that way for 30 years is difficult. We've recommended adding signage to the exterior side of the door which states "No parking at any time" but some clients even object to that and deem it unnecessary.

Any suggestions or insight would be appreciated - both from a design standpoint and from a risk management standpoint (the architect's liability for NOT providing bollards, signage, etc.).

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Daryl Bray AIA
SGA Design Group, P.C.
Tulsa OK
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Painting on the pavement?  Striped zone or the like; a vocabulary familiar to motorists. Fairly reasonable cost. 

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Stephen Wanta AIA
wanta-architect PLLC
New York NY
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I suggest you write a letter to the owner citing life safety concerns and possible violations and send certified mail return receipt.
Notify the local municipality of an ongoing possible life safety code violation.

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Martin Hero AIA
Hero Architects
Forest Hills NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-18-2014 17:41
From: Stephen Wanta
Subject: Maintaining Unobstructed means of Egress from the Exterior

Painting on the pavement?  Striped zone or the like; a vocabulary familiar to motorists. Fairly reasonable cost. 

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Stephen Wanta AIA
wanta-architect PLLC
New York NY
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Daryl,
To bring things together on this topic from the other thread, as well as this one, there was a post on the other one which identified two separate issues:
1)  Is unobstructed egress required from an existing building?
2)  How can we convince owners to do something about making egress routes harder to obstruct?

The answer to #1 is yes.  I think bollards, which could just be capped pieces of pipe with a baseplate bolted down, located so that the doors can at least swing open, would be effective. Painted stripes will wear off and will hide under snow.  Putting a curb, raised above the level-with-door-threshold surface, in the egress route is just a way to trip people, not good in an exit scenario.  "Fire Exit Do No Block" signs would be cheaper than bollards.

For #2, if the owners are truly cheapskates, good luck.  The registered letter, turn them in to the fire marshall, etc. approaches are CYA approaches and may guarantee no repeat work, which might not be a bad thing.  Wouldn't hurt to call the fire department and just ask how they deal with obstructed exits and mention your concerns, though. 

Approach #2a could be a general letter sent to owner/landlord/tenant (as appropriate) at the start of the job after you visit the site and take your as-is photos.  "Dear John Doe, when visiting your retail center we noticed that there is nothing in place to prevent vehicles from parking in front of exit doors.  This could be very hazardous if there was a fire or other need to quickly evacuate the building.  We also noticed that the roof drains could use cleaning, etc. etc.   Let them know you're concerned about their building and their tenants.  Put a few sample photos with marked-up circles, arrows and notes to point out the problem.  Keep a copy of what you sent into your file. Maybe send a copy, with the cc: noted, to your insurance broker (and be sure that "insurance" appears in that CC: name, as a subtle reminder to the owner.)

If you like, tell them how much a sign or a bollard might cost, installed (ask your local sign companies and a few contractors for ballpark prices).  They could always put the $100 or so for a bare minimum bollard (each) into the Common Area Maintenance costs and extract it from the tenants ....

For new construction, just put the bollards, or the raised curb and sidewalk, or whatever, into the drawings.

Kind of ironic that they probably can't get their utilities connected without having bollards to protect the meters, but they won't be bothered to protect the exits. 

This all assumes that the tenants haven't blocked or locked the exit doors, of course.

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Joel Niemi AIA
Principal
Snohomish WA

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Original Message:
Sent: 03-20-2014 10:01
From: Martin Hero
Subject: Maintaining Unobstructed means of Egress from the Exterior

I suggest you write a letter to the owner citing life safety concerns and possible violations and send certified mail return receipt.
Notify the local municipality of an ongoing possible life safety code violation.

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Martin Hero AIA
Hero Architects
Forest Hills NY
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I'm not sure of the requirements, I suppose a full length detectable warning would help.
As for bollards, I like Target's round concrete spheres or Toys-R-Us "toy shaped" bollards.
Frank

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Frank Marshall
EI Associates
Harrisburg PA
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Daryl,
Some thoughts on your question.
I do not have a code book handy but protecting the exit way past the discharge point is our responsibility; from a liability standpoint at a minimum.

1. If memory serves, the code does require a clear and level landing area on either side of the door and a pathway. It is also our responsibility to protect the public. This could be done with a concrete stoop or bollards as you have done in the past. In convention center projects, we had people exiting into the service tunnel areas with vehicular traffic including semi tractor trailers. We provided pipe railings parallel to the driveway on top of "stripped sidewalks" to turn the people who where exiting; keeping them from running straight out of the door into potential traffic.

2. I think Mr. Mayo has the smoking gun here. Stripping the area and providing no parking signs with "by order of the fire marshal" and "violators will be towed" should deter most folks. I would think the fire marshal would require this for high occupancy exiting and C.O.? You might want to check NFPA as suggested and with the local fire marshal for requirements? 

3. Possibly check OSHA for any requirements as well.

4. These are pretty minor cost items to the client. If they do not want to do the right thing and it is a real and existing problem (people parking in front of doors), you might want to "gently suggest" to the client that your insurance company will want a release from liability for not accepting life safety recommendations from the architect; make the insurance company the "bad cop" and put the owner at "risk".

Just my thoughts,
Good luck
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Glenn Hurd AIA
Senior Project Manager, LEED AP BD+C
HNO Consultants
Scottsdale AZ