By Howard Packowitz

BLOOMINGTON – The last and most costly addition to bring Grossinger Motors Arena into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act won less-than-enthusiastic approval from the Bloomington City Council Monday night.

The vote was 5-3 to spend $610,500 in public money for a new elevator because the Illinois Attorney General’s office determined the arena does not have at least one accessible route connecting each floor, as required in multi-story buildings.

The elevator, to be built on the arena’s south side, boosts the total cost to $956,919.17 to meet ADA requirements that were not in the design plans 12 years ago.

Aldermen David Sage, Mboka Mwilambwe, and Karen Schmidt voted no.

“I think we all assumed the building was built to be ADA compliant, and clearly it wasn’t,” said Schmidt.

She asked if the city has a legal option to get back the money. City Attorney Jeffrey Jurgens said probably not.

“We could spin our wheels and try and go back and figure all of that out. If I’m being perfectly honest, the thought that we’re actually going to be fruitful in that effort, I’m not sure we’re going to be,” Jurgens said.

Artists typically performing at the arena block off areas near their dressing rooms for security purposes, which restricts access for the disabled. The arena’s finance director, Pat Ahlers, said if there’s any change, word would spread among promoters that they would not have as much space, making it harder for the struggling arena to attract top entertainment.

“That information will go out to other promoters that they are friends with, that they work with, and (they’ll) sit back and say, ‘Don’t go to Bloomignton, we had this issue, we weren’t happy with it,”‘Ahlers said.

Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected]