Disabled Parking: Fruitful or Frustrating
Here's a funny (and true) story about one of my clients and how he changed his mind on disabled parking.
Whether you're a tenant or a landlord of an existing retail shopping center or strip mall, I bet you have some strong opinions about the requirements for disabled parking.
Most tenants realize that the shopping center must provide disabled parking somewhere, but when these disabled stalls are proposed in front of their space, more times than not the shop owner views them as a nuisance.
The landlord is required to provide a ratio of disabled parking stalls with compliant loading zone areas and ramp access up to the walkway that connects to each tenant space entry.
Most landlords I know don’t particularly enjoy dealing with the ever-changing ADA requirements nor do they like to install new disabled parking stalls in front of an existing tenant's space. The perceived loss of standard parking stalls especially up close to the building and the possible backlash from the tenant can make any landlord pause!
Well let me tell you what happened to Hank!
Hank owns more than 80 shopping centers nationally and is in his late 60’s. Born and raised in Texas he is a “No Nonsense” guy who is stuck in his ways. Hank was served in a lawsuit involving one of his properties in California, and I had the pleasure of meeting him onsite before we completed the inspection.
This particular center had enough parking stalls to require 6 disabled stalls with cross-hatched loading zones, and he had one disabled stall with no loading zone at all. When I explained to Hank what this property required and where these stalls needed to be placed he looked at me with a scowl.
It just so happened that one of his toughest tenants was going to lose three stalls in front of her space to provide a dual set of disabled parking that shares an 8-foot loading zone. This tenant owns and runs a very successful upscale ladies salon with a steady stream of customers. This tenant was not happy with what Hank and I were proposing at first and threatened a lawsuit of her own due to potential loss of business.
The disabled parking was added and we inspected it and that was the end of it! Or so I thought!
Six months later I received a call from Hank with some interesting news ...
This salon owner had sent a letter along with her last rent check explaining how thrilled she was with “her new disabled customer parking spaces” and that she has seen a 20% increase in customers with many of these new customers using the disabled parking.
Hank yelled through the phone that he was shocked at the positive response and that he had no idea that these parking stalls made such a difference.