To many people, downtown Roanoke's historic red brick buildings and green-and-white awnings are welcoming signs of the city's revitalization of its downtown area.

But some people with disabilities see a handful of downtown's buildings not as inviting restaurants and shops, but as a series of barriers.

Robert Eggers is one of those people.

The 47-year-old Roanoke resident, who was born without the use of his legs and one arm, and his attorney, David Beidler, last month sent eight complaints to the U.S. Department of Justice. Eggers, who also serves on the Mayor's Committee for the Disabled, claims some downtown businesses are discriminating against him by failing to remove barriers to entrances or by not making the businesses accessible to him even in the least burdensome way -- a sign and buzzer at the entrance.

Since news of the complaints, some business and building owners have said they cannot make changes to the outside of their buildings because they are historic.

Some maintain it's not realistic to expect buildings constructed around the turn of the 20th century to conform to modern standards.

"The buildings were built 100 years ago, before they knew what handicapped-accessible even was," said Bill Kopcial, who owns the eatery Ernie's at 210 Market St.

It remains to be seen how much a building's historic status will play into the claim of inaccessibility.

It's true that the businesses and buildings named in the complaints are located in the Roanoke City Market District, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Yet even with historic status, buildings are still required under the Americans with Disabilities Act to remove barriers to people with disabilities, said Dennis Cannon, an accessibility specialist with the U.S. Access Board in Washington, D.C., which writes the guidelines for the ADA.

The only exemption is if changes to a building would destroy or alter its historic significance, Cannon argued.

That is rarely the case, he said.

In fact, several buildings in Roanoke's Old Southwest Historic District have already received approval for and built ramps to accommodate clients or customers with disabilities.

Bottom line: Business and building owners can't use the historic designation as a complete shield from the ADA, Beidler said.

"What businesses can't do is simply ignore the law because of a misconception that simply because a building is in a historic district, that the ADA doesn't apply to them," he said.

Landmark legislation

The ADA is about independence, said Jonathan Martinis, managing attorney of the Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy, which assists people with disabilities.

"The ADA is not about helping me get in," Martinis said. "The ADA is about getting in."

The discussion of removing barriers in downtown Roanoke is likely to focus not only on buildings' historic status, but also on what exactly "accessibility" means.

That determination is generally made on a case-by-case basis, Martinis said.

Eggers' complaints state that he cannot enter eight downtown businesses without assistance because they have ledges or steps that prevent him from going inside in his wheelchair.

He and Beidler, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society of the Roanoke Valley, sent the complaints to the Department of Justice. Beidler had sent letters in June to about a dozen downtown businesses and business owners about the accessibility issue but he said they failed to generate any change.

Some downtown business owners have responded that they or their employees go outside to assist people with disabilities or help them inside.

But that's not good enough for some advocates for the disabled.

"These people are discriminating," said Ruthee Goldkorn, a California consultant for the rights of the disabled. "They might as well say, 'No cripples allowed.' "

'Readily achievable'

The ADA says that places of public accommodation must remove barriers to people with disabilities.

But the law has different requirements for buildings that were constructed or modified before the ADA was enacted in 1992.

Under the law, any place of public accommodation that was created or significantly modified after 1992 -- when the ADA was fully enacted -- must remove barriers and meet accessibility guidelines, Martinis said.

The extensive guidelines include provisions that people in wheelchairs should have a passage width of 36 inches, for example.

But places of public accommodation that were built before the ADA became law face a lower standard, Martinis said. Those places must remove barriers to people with disabilities to the extent that is "readily achievable."

That means modifications are "easily accomplishable and able to be carried out without much difficulty or expense," according to the Department of Justice.

But the law also leaves it up to the place of public accommodation to decide what changes are "readily achievable."

"The idea was, places were supposed to take a good, hard look and make changes," Martinis said.

"Readily achievable" involves a large range of strategies, said Michael Stein, a professor at the College of William and Mary's law school who has written extensively on the ADA.

The Department of Justice suggests that some ways places of public accommodation can remove barriers to people with disabilities include portable ramps, using offset door hinges that make a doorway wider, and signs and buzzers to alert employees that someone outside needs assistance.

Tax incentives and deductions are also available for entities that comply with the ADA.

The burden of "readily achievable" is also based on the size and resources of a place of public accommodation.

For example, what's "readily achievable" for a giant company such as McDonald's is different from what might be readily achievable for a mom-and-pop store, Martinis said.

And what might surprise some business owners in downtown Roanoke is that the ADA puts legal responsibility for the removal of barriers not just on landlords, but on tenants as well.

Some tenants interviewed earlier this month said they were precluded from making any modifications for accessibility by their leases.

'The practical facts'

Sometimes people disagree -- as they currently do about some businesses in downtown Roanoke -- on whether a place of public accommodation has removed barriers. Those disputes have led to complaints to the U.S. Department of Justice and private lawsuits. Precisely how many is difficult to determine.

But "certainly there are businesses where the practical facts will make accessibility not readily achievable," Stein said. For example, in a business with steps to its entry, constructing a ramp with the required slope might not be possible. Or in a business with very little floor space, the 36-inch aisles required for accessibility would take away a lot of display space, Stein said.

But the ADA also requires that if accessibility cannot be achieved, places of public accommodation must provide alternate means of service.

Those services, for example, could include picking up someone's dry cleaning and delivering it to them at the door, Martinis said.

Historic status

The ADA does provide an exemption for historical buildings where the modifications would change the historic nature of the building.

Putting a ramp in front of an antebellum mansion or a Frank Lloyd Wright home, for example, would destroy their historical significance, Cannon said.

But placing a ramp in front of a building where George Washington once slept in an upstairs bedroom would not destroy historic significance, because the significance is the room, not the building itself, said Cannon, of the U.S. Access Board.

Eggers' complaints filed with the Department of Justice all concern businesses that are located in downtown Roanoke's City Market Historic District.

Roanoke's Architectural Review Board makes the determination on whether any proposed modifications for accessibility would affect a building's historic status.

Since 1995, the board has worked with guidelines for the downtown historic district that were prepared by a consultant, generally follow federal standards, and were endorsed by the city council, according to city planner Anne Beckett.

But ramps aren't addressed in the guidelines, she said.

Beckett said she could not say whether a ramp would compromise a building's historic status without seeing the design. And she said no one from the downtown City Market district has come to the board with a proposal for accessibility modifications.

But the Architectural Review Board has approved requests for accessibility modifications to buildings in another Roanoke historic district.

The board approved two requests to build ramps in Old Southwest. Those buildings -- one at 345 Mountain Ave. and one at 1506 Franklin Road -- house the Congregational Holiness Church and the office of obstetrician/gynecologist Robert Wisman.

Both buildings now have ramps in front.

Beckett said her office also approved two other requests for modification at the staff level without having the matter go before the board. Those buildings are the Lyon Apartments at 353 Highland Ave. and the law office of Gary Lumsden at 1220 Franklin Ave.

Lumsden, who owns the building, said he added the ramp during a larger renovation about two or three years ago.

"I had been here for 20 years," Lumsden said. "I just thought it was appropriate."

At the time, much of his office's work involved workers' compensation cases.

Lumsden pointed out that older buildings weren't built to accommodate people in wheelchairs.

Building the ramp cost about $8,000, he said.

But asked about the historic status of his building, Lumsden said he wasn't sure how historic it is anymore, because over the past 20 years it seems he has had to replace about 90 percent of the building.

"The joy of owning an old building," he said.

Options?

Accessibility can come in many forms, but people can disagree on what may be appropriate.

"In some instances, a sign and a buzzer may be the answer," Beidler said.

One of the businesses named in the complaint, the eatery Ernie's, has already added a doorbell and a sign.

Another option is a portable ramp; a three-foot, aluminum, roll-up ramp can cost about $240.

Some business owners in downtown Roanoke have said their businesses are accessible because employees are willing to lift people in wheelchairs to help them inside.

But some advocates for the disabled describe that as both degrading and dangerous.

"Having to knock on the door and say, 'Let my people in,' is degrading," Goldkorn said. "The last thing anyone wants is to be carried over a threshold."

Lifting someone in a wheelchair also raises the potential liability of injury to either the person in the wheelchair, or the people lifting the person, Martinis said.

Because of liability concerns, the Department of Justice has also issued rulings saying lifting is not an alternative, except in very rare situations in which no other options exist.

"By trying to avoid a simple expense, a business might run the risk of getting hit with a much bigger one," Martinis said.