Seats have been tossed aside in preparation for a minor Moody face lift.

The United States Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, which in part requires establishments to accommodate disabled individuals if possible. Scot Colley, executive director of risk management and construction, said the Office of Construction and Risk Management has been complying with the law by doing what it can to make popular spots on campus more accessible.

“The Americans with Disabilities Act states that you need to fix what’s readily attainable,”  he said. “So each year, we try to fix things that are readily attainable.”

Last year, Construction and Risk Management installed a ramp and accessible seating in Cullen Auditorium. Construction is responsible for the work currently being done, along with several outside companies. Colley said Moody Coliseum had been on their radar for a while.

“We have an accessible seating program,” he said. “Each year, we try to do more things to make campus more and more accessible.”

While Moody will receive an update in preparation for the move to Division I, the construction currently being done has nothing to do with that transition.

“There’ll be some new striping and some new paint on the floor,” said Colley. “That’ll be in the summer.”

The accessible seating project would also normally have been completed in the summer, but it would have interfered with the D-I project.

“We really wanted to wait until the summer, but we have to redo the floor,” Colley said. “If there’s any damage done to the floor, any damage, any scratches, it’ll be fixed in the summer.”

Along with ramps, a total of 30 handicapped seats will be installed. Colley said the project will be completed by the end of April.

“It is going to make our campus better. We do need to be more handicapped accessible,” Colley said. “It’s just the right thing to do.”

The Chapel Office has no involvement in the construction project. Mark Lewis, assistant dean of spiritual life and Chapel programs, said he had foreseen potential issues with students getting all their chapel credits due to the construction.

“With the construction I was anticipating it might take longer to get everyone in and out of Moody, so we were looking at extending the slide-in time a couple minutes, and making an effort to end Chapel a few minutes early,” he said.

Lewis said in spite of the construction, procedures went normally Monday.

“Everyone had slid out by six minutes after Chapel was dismissed. We’ll continue to monitor this closely,” Lewis said.