Fayetteville’s five-story Hay Street parking deck has no elevators. Is that legal?

Paul Woolverton, Fayetteville Observer

Fayetteville’s five-story parking deck on Hay Street, completed in 2020, still has no elevator, but plans are underway to add one.

The lack of lifts in the parking deck’s elevator shafts creates challenges for people with mobility issues, such as 70-year-old Judy Hawkins, who has not sought a disability license plate or placard allowing her to park in disability-accessible parking spaces on the ground floor.

Judy Hawkins stands by one of the sealed off elevator shafts in the Hay Street parking deck. Hawkins, who has a bad knee, had to walk down four flights of stairs when she went to a recent Woodpeckers baseball game because the parking deck has no elevators.
Judy Hawkins stands by one of the sealed off elevator shafts in the Hay Street parking deck. Hawkins, who has a bad knee, had to walk down four flights of stairs when she went to a recent Woodpeckers baseball game because the parking deck has no elevators.

Hawkins has a bad knee — and she anticipates partial knee replacement. When she went to see the Woodpeckers baseball team play and watch the fireworks on July 3, she thought parking her Pontiac in the deck next door to Segra Stadium would make it easy for her to get to the game.

She found a parking space on the fourth level. There, she felt stuck.

“With the knee, pain is, you know, a problem. And I like I said: I didn’t know that they didn’t have an elevator,” Hawkins said.

Not only was it difficult and slow for Hawkins to navigate the stairs, she said, but she found it harrowing to use the stairwell after the game when it was packed with people rushing to leave.

A busted door opens to an elevator shaft on the fifth floor of the Hay Street parking deck.
A busted door opens to an elevator shaft on the fifth floor of the Hay Street parking deck.

The city-owned parking deck at 466 Hay St. is to be the foundation for a 212-unit apartment building to be built by a private developer. The developer has said elevators won’t be installed until the construction on top is done. In May, the developer said construction is postponed because of the recent rise in interest rates for loans and a shortage of investors willing to invest.

It is legal under the Americans With Disabilities Act for the parking deck to go without an elevator, City Manager Doug Hewett said, because there are ground-level parking spaces designated for people with disability license plates and placards. However, Hewett said, there are plans in the works to install one anyway.

“We have met the requirements for ADA accessibility with the ground-floor parking, as well as the parking that is in the alleyway between Subway and the parking garage,” Hewett said. There is a Subway restaurant in the Amtrak train station next door to the parking deck.

The Hay Street parking deck and The Residences at the Prince Charles apartment building, Aug. 2, 2023.
The Hay Street parking deck and The Residences at the Prince Charles apartment building, Aug. 2, 2023.

“But I do understand the need for us to have an elevator. We are working to install an elevator,” he said. An elevator was part of the city’s agreement with the developer, he said. “We are now trying to find someone to install the elevator.”

Hewett did not have a timetable or a cost and said these things are affected by whatever will be the design for the tower to be built on top of the deck.

In the meantime, Hawkins has no plans to come to another Woodpeckers game until the elevator is installed. “No, not here,” she said.

Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@fayobserver.com.

A view of the Prince Charles apartment building from the Hay Street parking deck, Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023.
A view of the Prince Charles apartment building from the Hay Street parking deck, Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Why doesn't the Hay Street parking deck have an elevator?

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