Apartment and condominium common areas sit under two different accessibility laws depending on what the space is and who uses it. The residential portions — corridors, unit entries, resident-only amenities — fall under the federal Fair Housing Act’s design and construction requirements for buildings with first occupancy after March 1991, while a leasing office or clubhouse open to prospective residents and the general public functions as a place of public accommodation under ADA Title III on top of that.

The other thing that separates this category from everything else in this package: the building is occupied. Renovating a lobby, corridor, or amenity deck at a 200-unit property in Broward or Palm Beach means phasing work around residents living there day to day, coordinating with a condo association board or a property management company instead of a single tenant, and keeping at least one accessible path open at every point in construction.

A condominium association renovating a lobby typically needs board approval and sometimes a unit-owner vote plus reserve or special-assessment funding; an apartment community’s ownership group runs the same scope through a capital improvement budget — two very different approval paths for what might be an identical construction scope.

Because residents live in the building throughout construction, phasing has to guarantee at least one accessible entrance and elevator lobby stays open and usable at every stage — a hard constraint an unoccupied commercial building doesn’t have. Work hours have to account for local noise ordinances and reasonable expectations for residents living adjacent to construction, resident notification (mailers, posted notices, sometimes direct outreach for accessibility accommodations) becomes part of project logistics, and protecting occupied units immediately next to demolition work is a standard part of the plan rather than an exception.

• Scope of common areas involved — Lobby-only renovations cost far less than lobby-plus-corridors-plus-amenities projects.
• FHA/ADA compliance retrofits — Older buildings needing accessible route upgrades to meet current standards add cost beyond cosmetic work.
• Occupied-building phasing and protection — Sequencing and protective measures needed to keep residents safely housed during construction add both cost and time.
• Approval path timeline — A condo board vote and special assessment process can extend project timelines well beyond a capital-budget approval.
• Finish tier expectations — Properties repositioning toward a higher market segment typically specify higher-end finish packages.
• Shared-system coordination — Fire alarm, elevator, and standpipe work affecting the whole building adds engineering and scheduling complexity.