Dear forum,
We have a project that is seeking the C&S LEED Certification. The building will be a high-rise building, the first 5 levels will be for retail use and from floor 6th to the top it will be for office use. The building also has 12 underground parking levels. The decision was to Certify only the office area of the building, not the part that will be used for retail. There are 7 parking levels that will be used for office users and the rest of the levels (5) will be for the retail users. My question is, can we include all parking levels in the energy model, even if the retail area will not be included? The reason we want to include it is that the lighting design for the parking will have a lower LPD than the allowed LPD for the baseline model, so adding all parking levels will give us more lighting savings. Thank you in advance
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5909 thumbs up
August 20, 2013 - 3:54 pm
Check the MPRs on what you can and can't submit when attempting to exclude a portion(s) of a building.
To be brutally honest Santiago what you describe sounds like you are just trying to game the system. Include part because it helps, exclude another part because it hurts. Why exclude the retail, especially since it is a CS project where the tenant use is neutral? IMO opinion do the whole building or nothing at all.
Santiago Rodriguez
Revitaliza Consultores65 thumbs up
August 20, 2013 - 4:35 pm
Thank you Marcus,
The reason we thought not to include the retail area was because the owner did not want to implement any efficient envelope in that part, only in the office area, so it will not help to achieve the EAp2 pre-requisite.
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5909 thumbs up
August 20, 2013 - 5:20 pm
The envelope performance is not a mandatory provision so it would not preclude you from attaining EAp2 unless your savings are so low they can't meet the minimum percent savings.