Almost every apartment building in the United States taller than three stories is required to have two staircases. Most of the world is not.
That single requirement, written into the International Building Code that Nevada and nearly every other state adopt, shapes the apartments we live in more than almost any design choice an architect makes. To connect two stairs, a building needs a long central hallway with units lined up on both sides, the double-loaded corridor. Those units get windows on only one side. They are narrow, they are dark, and they are hard to ventilate. The second stair and its corridor also cost money and consume floor area that could otherwise be a home. By one common estimate, a second mid-rise stairwell costs roughly $200,000 to build.
There is another way to build, and it is not new. It is called the point access block: a compact floor with a handful of units clustered around a single, highly protected stair. Those units get light and air from two or three sides. Family-sized two- and three-bedroom apartments become easy to lay out. And the building fits on small infill lots that a double-loaded slab never could. This is the standard mid-rise form across Europe and much of Asia, and it is legal today in Seattle and New York City, which have built this way for decades.
"Modern fire safety is not achieved by counting staircases. It is achieved by building a system."
The safety question, answered
The objection is always the same, and it deserves a real answer: is one stair safe? The honest response is that a single stair, by itself, in an old combustible building with no sprinklers, is not the goal. The goal is a system. Single-stair reform does not just delete a staircase. It requires a package of modern protections in exchange: full NFPA 13 commercial-grade sprinklers, a stairwell kept clear of smoke by mechanical pressurization, non-combustible construction, a cap of four units per floor, and a short walk (around 25 feet) from any door to the stair.
When you require that system, the data is reassuring. A 2025 analysis by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Center for Building in North America found that single-stairway buildings as tall as six stories are at least as safe as other types of housing. Reviewing federal fire records, U.S. Fire Administration fatality data, and New York City property data, researchers found no fire fatality attributable to the lack of a second exit across the more than 4,000 single-stair buildings of four or more stories in New York City. A manual review of fatal fires in Seattle reached the same conclusion. The countries that build this way post lower fire-death rates than the United States, not higher.
What this means for Nevada
Nevada still follows the default two-stair rule. The requirement lives in the building code adopted by local jurisdictions, while the State Public Works Division controls only state-owned buildings, so the clean fix is state legislation that sets a uniform standard. Fourteen-plus states have done exactly this since 2023. Montana and Colorado legalized single-stair mid-rise outright. Tennessee created code language cities can opt into. California and Washington ran formal study groups first. Nevada has a clear menu to choose from.
The politics are more favorable than they look. The 2025 Legislature passed a bipartisan housing package, including AB 241 (multifamily and infill) and the broader AB 540 effort, establishing that housing supply is a statewide concern worth acting on. Single-stair reform is the logical next step, and on a representative Reno mid-rise it conservatively saves $150,000 to $250,000, or by the Pew and National Apartment Association method, six to thirteen percent of total construction cost.
The way to win is to lead with safety, not cost. Bring the State Fire Marshal and the Clark and Washoe County fire chiefs in early, offer the Seattle model as a starting point, and invite them to help write the Nevada-specific safety package rather than handing them a finished bill. The target is the 2027 session. Paired with elevator reform, single-stair is one half of a simple idea: let Nevada build the attainable, family-sized, mid-rise housing it keeps saying it wants.
This article draws on the 2025 Pew Charitable Trusts and Center for Building in North America single-stair safety research and a strategic analysis of single-stair reform for Nevada. Cost figures are defensible estimates, not an audited pro forma. See our Build Up, Nevada page for the combined plan, including elevator reform.