By Nikita Stewart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 2, 2007

The new $611 million baseball stadium for the Washington Nationals will have wheelchair seating in nearly every section and will fully comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act, team President Stan Kasten said yesterday.

Kasten said the seating will be in place by the time the 41,000-seat stadium opens in Southeast Washington in the spring. He made the announcement at a news conference attended by disabled people and officials from the Justice Department and Paralyzed Veterans of America, a nonprofit group that advocates for veterans with spinal cord injuries.

The veterans group has been litigious in its pursuit of fair seating at sports and other entertainment venues. In 1996, the group sued the Verizon Center, then known as the MCI Center, to force it to comply with the ADA.

There was no lawsuit this time. Everyone worked together from the start, said Maurice L. Jordan, deputy executive director of the nonprofit.

The Nationals "called us from the beginning, before the groundbreaking," Jordan said in an interview.

The Justice Department also guided the project as part of its push to enforce the ADA in sports arenas, stadiums and other public entertainment venues, Assistant Attorney General Wan J. Kim said.

"Who could argue that our national pastime, baseball, should not be accessible to all people?" he said at the news conference in a suite at RFK Stadium, where the Nationals play. About two dozen people in wheelchairs filled the room, along with people with other disabilities. A sign language interpreter was also there.

In the 1996 lawsuit against the MCI Center, a federal judge chided the Justice Department for failing to provide the arena's designers with proper direction on how to comply with the ADA. The ADA requires sports arenas to reserve 1 percent of their seating for wheelchairs with affixed companion seats.

More than a decade later, the Justice Department was able to tell the Nationals exactly what was expected. Architects Pat Tangen and Ed Roether of HOK Sport, which designed the stadium, said the department pushed them to incorporate more seating for the disabled in luxury suites.

Architects from the veterans group worked closely with HOK Sport and partner Devrouax and Purnell Architects of Washington, said Maureen McCloskey, national advocacy director of Paralyzed Veterans of America.

The architects visited other HOK Sport-designed venues in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia to see examples of the company's work and to recommend improvements for the new Washington stadium, she said.

"We think this one is going to be better than both," McCloskey said.

The group's biggest contribution was to recommend inconspicuous, wheelchair-accessible seating throughout the stadium -- from luxury boxes to the cheap seats.

"Everybody has a chance to sit in every seat," McCloskey said. There will be a "clear line of sight" from the seats, she said, so that disabled fans can see the action at all times. Otherwise, she said, "people stand up when something exciting happens, and . . . you're looking at someone's behind."

The seating is also fully integrated and looks like what any fan would have, said Mark Lichter, senior associate director of architecture for the veterans group. In the past, stadiums have placed all wheelchair seating together, he said.

The group also recommended designs that make the ticket booths and concessions more accessible, Lichter said. "It's not just about the ADA requirement," he said. "It's a feeling about being part of the game, being a spectator."