'Potty parity' comes to Palmer Depot

Next summer the old Alaska Railroad depot in the center of Palmer will be getting a $180,000 face lift thanks to a $110,000 grant from the state of Alaska and a $70,000 commitment from the city.

About $20,00 of the city's share was the local matching funds to qualify for the grant; an additional $50,000 was added to the 2002 budget by the city council.

Once the job is finished, those numbers will likely be forgotten, but there is one as-yet-undecided number that about half the people who frequent the building should notice.

Currently there is just one toilet in the depot's women's room. That number is expected to go up, according to Andy Simasko, the architect who is drawing up plans for the building. The Frontiersman can't report the exact number of new seats there will be, because Simasko has not put the final touches on the depot design.

Simasko said he has worked on the building before. The last time around he designed handicapped-accessible bathrooms, but didn't have the six-figure budget required to fund it. Because of space limitations, the women's restroom lost a seat during that remodel. Simasko told the Frontiersman that once again, codes have changed and he'll adjust the building accordingly.

"It's still kind of up in the air as to how many toilets we'll need to have," Simasko said. The history of use is a factor, as is the building's maximum occupancy after the remodel, which hasn't been determined.

"I don't know if there have been complaints, and it could be that somebody is standing in line but not saying anything," Simasko said.

Local governments generally adopt international building codes and amend those codes to fit local needs. The amendments account for things such as earthquakes and snow loads, but in 1999 the Alaska Legislator jumped on a national band-wagon known as "potty parity."

Alaska law uses the Uniform Plumbing Code of the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials. A potty-parity amendment to the UPC was introduced by Sen. Dave Donley, R-Anchorage, in May 1999, and was signed into law by Gov. Tony Knowles the following month.

A 1999 press release from Donley's office portrayed the Anchorage senator as friendly to developers, by pointing out that Washington State has the highest mandated ratio of women's to men's facilities at 4 to 1, while Donley's proposal set the Alaskan ratio at 2.7 to 1 "depending on the size of the facility."

Donley's staff included observations about pregnancy and incontinence and this quote: "When women are forced to stand in long lines to use the bathroom, they can be in considerable pain."

The new Alaska code took effect in January 2000. When asked to look at a copy of the law, Palmer's director of public works Rick Koch said he didn't know if it applied to the depot.

"It depends on the use of the building," Koch said.

The Alaska code amendment sets standards for "Assembly places -- auditoriums, conventions halls, dance floors, lodge rooms, stadiums, and casinos." The law includes a table that sets the ratio of toilets to women, not women's toilets to men's toilets. Simasko said he would divide the maximum capacity of the building by two to figure number of women's toilets needed.

The table calls for "four water closets for 1 to 50 females, six water closets for 51 to 100 females, 10 water closets for 101 to 200 females."

Using Simasko's divide-by-two formula, if the depot's maximum occupancy is between 100 and 200, then six women's toilets will be required.

Dee Prickett of the Palmer Chamber of Commerce said the chamber hosts events at the depot a few times each year, every year since the freight warehouse at the building's north end was converted into a meeting place.

Prickett knows about long lines at the bathroom, but said six toilets for 100 women might be overkill.

"Well, that's ridiculous," Prickett said. "I mean you'd have to have six women in there all of the time -- I think they are a little skewed on those numbers." Prickett did say that the current situation at the depot is, at times, less than adequate.

"I've been in there a few times when there was a line, but never an extremely long line," she said. "I do think they need another one, but I don't think they need three more or five more."

Simasko said the bulk of his design work is focused on acoustics in the meeting hall and adding windows that open for temperature control. The kitchen floor will be raised so it matches the main hall, and there is a new plan for the manager's apartment, which will be either storage or a small meeting room. He said no one had asked about returning the building to its original color, but that could be arranged.

Bid specifications for the depot remodel will be available Feb. 5, there will be a pre-bid conference at the depot Feb. 14 and the deadline for contractors to submit bids is 2 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26.