The state fire marshal found 24 deficiencies at the University of Rhode Island's Ryan Center just three months after the $54-million sports arena opened its doors in June 2002. Among the most serious problems noted in the report were several blocked or narrowed exits.
Some flaws have already been fixed, such as adding more signs and lighting, URI officials say. The rest are being reviewed by the state's Fire Safety Code Board of Appeal and Review, which received the case in November.
However, the heart of the matter -- how safe the Ryan Center is if it doesn't fully comply with state safety requirements -- is complicated.
"There are two ways of doing these things, and doing it one way doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong," explains William Howe, chief of inspections for the fire marshal's office.
The traditional way of inspecting buildings and assessing safety is called the prescriptive method, and involves concrete tasks such as measuring door widths and calculating capacity based on square footage, for example.
It's the way the state fire marshal's office inspects buildings, says state Fire Marshal Irving J. Owens. And based on those standards, the Ryan Center came up short and needs a closer look, Owens says.
"No one has said there was anything that meant it couldn't stay open," Owens said. "But there are several things we hope they will bring into compliance."
URI argues the building does conform with state law, if analyzed under a new method of assessing safety -- the performance-based standard.
This method considers the impact of new technologies, such as extra sprinklers, venting systems that can suck out deadly smoke and cutting-edge fire alarm systems -- all of which the Ryan Center uses.
Such measures buy people time and make buildings safer, says J. Kevin Culley, URI's safety and risk-management director, and a former New York City firefighter.
"Bottom line, the building is well designed to handle a fully occupied, 8,000-person event," Culley said.
Much of the confusion surrounding the building's safety could have been avoided if the fire marshal's office was consulted earlier in the planning and building phases, which usually happens with public buildings, fire and URI officials agree.
"This probably would have been avoided if early on, there hadn't been a lack of communication," said Culley, who was hired by URI last year.
An independent engineer will review the situation and report to the appeals board in the near future. The state fire marshal's office said one had been hired yesterday, but declined to identify the firm until all parties had been notified.
Howe says he thought "some things didn't look right" when he conducted the Ryan Center safety inspection in September 2002.
Two of the most critical concerns were: three key exit stairways narrow from 16 feet to 13.5 feet at their midway landings, causing potential delays when exiting the building during an emergency; and the presidential suite blocks access to an exit corridor.
So far, URI has corrected about a third of the deficiencies, and will ask for variances on several others, Culley said, such as having a slightly larger diesel-fuel tank for the arena's emergency generator; using a different kind of announcement system to talk to the audience in the event of an emergency; and lowering by one inch the headroom requirement for a small exit stairwell, from 6 feet, 7 inches to 6 feet, 6 inches, to make way for a sprinkler pipe.
Not much can be done to change the width of the stairways, Culley says.
"I think this is a mistake. I found this odd myself," Culley said. "But the [performance-based] argument still applies." Sprinklers and ventilation should give people extra time to find a third exit located nearby, Culley says.
Perhaps one issue can be clarified by the appeals board: limiting the type of events that can be held in a building designed specifically with sports and concerts in mind.
A "monster truck" exhibition held at the Ryan Center last March included an enormous dinosaur that was to chew up cars and blow fire from its snout.
Culley didn't allow the fire portion of the show, in part out of sensitivity to Rhode Islanders still reeling from the deadly nightclub fire that claimed 100 lives just one month earlier.
"There will be no pyrotechnics at all, unless they jump through two hoops -- mine and the fire marshal's," Culley said yesterday.
