A master plan to make Tufts' housing more accessible to individuals with disabilities is in the process of being finalized and is awaiting formal approval from regulatory authorities.
Richard Reynolds, vice president for operations in the Facilities Department and Rudi Pizzi, deferred maintenance program manager, are leading the effort to make Tufts more handicap-friendly, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board (MAAB).
MAAB is a regulatory agency within the Massachusetts Office of Public Safety that aims to make public buildings accessible for use by persons with disabilities.
Facilities and MAAB worked together to create a master plan for making dorms handicap-accessible while equipping them with newer facilities. Plans for renovating existing dorm buildings began in February, according to Reynolds.
MAAB is collaborating with Tufts as part of a trial in making campuses across the state more compliant with disabled accessibility requirements for public buildings.
Reynolds noted that while ideally they would like to upgrade all the buildings on campus to make them completely accessible, older buildings present a challenge to this goal.
"You have to keep in mind the age of the Medford campus," Reynolds said. "With the older buildings come many restraints. If we were building a brand new building, it would be entirely accessible, but with more historic buildings, we recognize our limitations."
Reynolds cited as an example a project to over the summer remodel all the bathrooms in West Hall, which faced challenges because of existing legislation regarding handicap-accessible buildings.
"Under law, [remodeling the bathrooms] requires us to make all floors accessible to the disabled," Reynolds said. "That would be expensive because of the age of the building, so we must receive variance from the MAAB so we do not have to put accessible rooms in West."
Reynolds further explained that Tufts reached a compromise with MAAB so that individual dorms like West, which pose particular difficulties, do not have to be made fully accessible in exchange for Tufts' commitment to make five percent of the rooms across all of campus — making up approximately 111 rooms — handicap accessible.
Making dorms accessible involves increasing the size of toilet stalls and bathrooms, altering door and room sizes and putting more rooms on the ground floor as an alternative to installing elevators.
Implementing these changes while installing new bathroom facilities or redoing buildings reduces the costs and construction time, according to Reynolds.
He added that the accessibility changes will be made concurrently with renovations.
"We are committed to making the bulk of these changes over the next three to five years," Reynolds said. "We will alter the rooms simultaneously when altering other aspects, such as fixing roofs, remodeling bathrooms. The cost is part of the total cost for the entire job; it's not an isolated endeavor, but part of a larger project for an entire dorm."
Pizzi stressed that funding for the accessibility upgrade project is not separate from the total cost of all remodeling work in a particular dorm.
"We fund work project by project," Pizzi said. "If we are working on a residential hall, we look at all issues concerning that hall and determine its compliance."
Pizzi noted that the construction on West is just a part of the larger plan put together by MAAB and Tufts.
"We have a master plan we presented to the MAAB board with a number of compliant residence halls and noncompliant ones," Pizzi said. "West and dorms similar to it received variance from the board. With its age and architectural layout, it was not cost-effective to add disabled rooms to the building."
MAAB may grant final approval to the master plan by mid-May, according to Reynolds. If so, construction would begin over the summer, with scheduled projects to be completed by the beginning of fall 2010.
