Our project is a large destination resort, with hotel and timeshare components. For all the frequently used entry locations, except these ones explained below, we will provide either permanently installed grate products or removable mats (with documented maintenance regimen) of the required dimensions. Our questions address entryway systems at the following two specific entrance locations. Location 1: Beachfront restaurant: The dining areas for a freestanding beachfront restaurant are under cover and open-air without enclosing walls on three sides, with the wall of the enclosed kitchen on the fourth side. The floor surface in some areas is beach sand; in others it is sandstone, basalt and limestone. Entryways between the adjacent hardscape, beach areas and lawn, and the dining areas, extend along much of the perimeter of the dining areas. Because of the indoor-outdoor character of the dining areas, open access along the perimeter, and the sand flooring, we propose not to include an entryway system between the dining areas and the "outside,\' and we propose to include the required entryway system between the dining areas and the kitchen to keep sand and other particles from being brought into the kitchen. Is this approach acceptable? Location 2: Meeting room area: The resort includes a small conference center which is a pavilion within a courtyard accessible only through the public areas of the hotel. The courtyard includes covered hardscape walkways and uncovered landscaped and hardscaped areas. Because the courtyard and the conference center are accessible only through the public areas of the hotel, entrances to which have compliant entryway systems, is it acceptable not to have entryway systems at the doorways between the covered exterior walkways and the meeting rooms that comprise the conference center?
The applicant is asking if the two areas described above can be exempted from the entry way system requirements of this credit. For Location 1 as described above, it appears as though this area does not qualify as a regular entry to the building, because the occupied area described is open to the outdoors and not a fully enclosed building area. Therefore, Location 1 is exempt from the entry way system requirement. For Location 2 as described above, it appears as though this area is a regular entry to the building as occupants pass between open air, exposed areas (covered walkways) before entering the enclosed meeting rooms. Therefore this space would require the entry way systems as described in the credit language.