ADA Compliance: The Costly Blind Spot in Your Buildout.
What every commercial tenant needs to know about accessibility — before the inspector shows up and before the lawsuit arrives.
In 25 years of managing commercial development projects for the largest restaurant brands, I still find it surprising when construction professionals or brands lack clear understanding of their ADA obligations. Sure, you can ask whether spending money on getting your plans reviewed by ADA professionals and doing a pre/post ADA survey based on your investment type is really worth spend? YES! Think about it this way, would you avoid getting health insurance since you are in good health, eat well, and exercise - it is a risk most individuals would not take.
The Americans with Disabilities Act isn’t optional, it’s not flexible, and it doesn’t care whether you didn’t know about a requirement. If your space is open to the public, it must be accessible. Period. And the cost of getting it right during design is a fraction of the cost of fixing it after construction — or defending yourself in court.
It’s Not Just About Ramp Width
When most people think about ADA compliance, they think about wheelchair ramps and handicapped parking spaces. Those are important, but they’re just the beginning. ADA compliance in a commercial buildout touches virtually every aspect of your space: door widths, counter heights, restroom layouts, signage placement, floor transitions, path of travel clearances, reach ranges for controls and fixtures, and tactile/visual wayfinding.
For restaurants, there are specific requirements around accessible seating, bar heights, and self-service areas. For retail, fitting room accessibility, checkout counter design, and display reach ranges all come into play. For wellness and healthcare spaces, treatment room accessibility, changing area design, and specialized equipment access add additional layers of complexity.
The Path of Travel Trap
Here’s the ADA requirement that catches the most tenants off guard: the path of travel rule. When you renovate a “primary function area” — essentially any space your customers use — you’re required to make the path of travel to that area accessible, up to 20% of your total renovation cost. That path of travel includes everything from the parking lot or public sidewalk through your front door to the renovated space.
This means your interior buildout can trigger exterior accessibility improvements to sidewalks, parking areas, and building entrances that you never budgeted for. We’ve seen tenants hit with $30,000 to $60,000 in unexpected path-of-travel improvements because nobody flagged the requirement during the design phase.
The 20% cap provides some relief, but the calculation itself is complex and often disputed. Having evaluated it by someone who understands both the ADA requirements and the construction cost implications is essential.
Legal Exposure Is Real
ADA compliance isn’t just about building codes, it’s federal civil rights law. That means private individuals can file lawsuits against your business for non-compliance, and there’s an active plaintiff’s bar that does exactly that. In many states, serial ADA litigants file hundreds of lawsuits per year against commercial businesses with accessibility deficiencies, these lawsuits could be for a few thousand dollars, which leaves you thinking does it make more sense to settle disputes and make necessary repairs needed for compliance or try to defend it which you will likely be unsuccessful.
Getting It Right From the Start
The good news is that ADA compliance is entirely manageable when it’s addressed in the design phase. Your architect/engineer should be designing to current ADA standards from day one, your contractor should be building to those standards. At CMG Inc., our teams are actively working with all key stakeholders to ensure compliance, and when mistakes are made, we hold necessary party responsible for curing defects at no costs to our client.
The Bottom Line
Accessibility isn’t a nice-to-have thing, it’s a legal requirement, a business imperative, and the right thing to do. The cost of designing and building an accessible space from the start is minimal compared to the cost of retrofitting after the fact or defending a lawsuit.
If you’re planning a buildout and haven’t had a dedicated conversation about ADA compliance with your design and construction team, that conversation needs to happen now. We’re happy to help you understand what’s required and make sure your project gets it right the first time.