[Brad Hill]

Hey Eric!?

While this might not be a viable option for your situation, the MU here at Iowa State is also pretty old, and we do run into some egress and capacity issues, but not to this point as if anything; we have too many doors in our ballrooms! Haha. That being said, if your building is only about 6-7 years old, I am assuming that your ballrooms are divided using air-walls or another contraption. One possible avenue would be to price out replacing one of your air-wall sections to include a door pass-through that could be used as an egress pathway into the other ballrooms. Maybe that could be a workaround for you. Just spitballing heree.?

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Brad Hill
Associate Director, Operations
Iowa State University
Ames IA
(515) 294-2301
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-26-2023 14:21
From: Eric Margiotta
Subject: Ballroom capacity, egress doors, and code compliance

Hi friends!

We recently received notice from our campus fire safety officer that when our ballrooms are separated, there aren’t enough exits to allow more than 49 people. All of the individual slices of our two ballrooms are typically set for 100+.

Our building is 30 years old. Locations of doors and ballrooms haven’t changed over those years. From emails that were forwarded, this issue last came up 7-8 years ago (before my time here). It doesn’t seem like there was a resolution other than “We can’t afford to add doors.” I wish there were more records from that time but I don’t believe there are.

Anyhow, I’m wondering if anyone else has run into an issue like this? If so, what did you do? Has there been success with alternative approaches (i.e. not paying to change the swing on our partition doors or adding doors to the rooms)? Maybe some kind of special dispensation from the state code office (we don’t have a campus code official)?

Thanks in advance for your stories and suggestions!

-Eric

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Eric Margiotta
Director, Student Unions & Engagement
William & Mary
Williamsburg VA
(757) 221-3431
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[Eric Margiotta]

Hey Brad!

Thanks so much for the reply! Since you have too many doors, do you want to send some to VA? 🙂

Good call on the airwalls! We have doors and, of course, they swing the wrong way. You can’t make this stuff up. I’ll have someone here on Monday to look at reversing the swing on the doors which seems like the cheapest possibility. That’s what the compliance side of me says.

The pushback side of me says I should keep asking questions about why it was let go before, reach out to the state code official, figure out why it wasn’t built to code and/or grandfathered in, etc.

It will be fun for me and my team to walk down all these roads and see where they lead.

Thanks again Brad!

-Eric

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Eric Margiotta
Director, Student Unions & Engagement
William & Mary
Williamsburg VA
(757) 221-3431
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 07-28-2023 15:17
From: Brad Hill
Subject: Ballroom capacity, egress doors, and code compliance

Hey Eric! 

While this might not be a viable option for your situation, the MU here at Iowa State is also pretty old, and we do run into some egress and capacity issues, but not to this point as if anything; we have too many doors in our ballrooms! Haha. That being said, if your building is only about 6-7 years old, I am assuming that your ballrooms are divided using air-walls or another contraption. One possible avenue would be to price out replacing one of your air-wall sections to include a door pass-through that could be used as an egress pathway into the other ballrooms. Maybe that could be a workaround for you. Just spitballing heree. 

——————————
Brad Hill
Associate Director, Operations
Iowa State University
Ames IA
(515) 294-2301
——————————

Original Message:
Sent: 07-26-2023 14:21
From: Eric Margiotta
Subject: Ballroom capacity, egress doors, and code compliance

Hi friends!

We recently received notice from our campus fire safety officer that when our ballrooms are separated, there aren’t enough exits to allow more than 49 people. All of the individual slices of our two ballrooms are typically set for 100+.

Our building is 30 years old. Locations of doors and ballrooms haven’t changed over those years. From emails that were forwarded, this issue last came up 7-8 years ago (before my time here). It doesn’t seem like there was a resolution other than “We can’t afford to add doors.” I wish there were more records from that time but I don’t believe there are.

Anyhow, I’m wondering if anyone else has run into an issue like this? If so, what did you do? Has there been success with alternative approaches (i.e. not paying to change the swing on our partition doors or adding doors to the rooms)? Maybe some kind of special dispensation from the state code office (we don’t have a campus code official)?

Thanks in advance for your stories and suggestions!

-Eric

——————————
Eric Margiotta
Director, Student Unions & Engagement
William & Mary
Williamsburg VA
(757) 221-3431
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