all, I'm new to the site, but have been browsing most of the comments related to FTE calcs, but I still haven't found what I'm looking for. I am working on a mixed use project where the retail is less than 10% of total GSF, but I don't know what that means it terms of FTE calcs. does it mean that we simply disregard the retail space? I know there are specific credit requirment related to bike raks, shower provides etc... but I still don't understand this fully. Can I use Appendix 1 for CS and calculate FTE for retail that way? any help would be greatly appreciated.
You rely on LEEDuser. Can we rely on you?
LEEDuser is supported by our premium members, not by advertisers.
Go premium for
David Posada
Integrated Design & LEED SpecialistSERA Architects
LEEDuser Expert
1980 thumbs up
November 21, 2012 - 7:27 pm
Even if the retail area is less than 10% of the GSF, you still need to include those occupants (employees) and transients (customers) in your FTE calcs. Yes, if you don’t have a specific retail tenant or known occupancy count, you can use the CS Appendix 1 default occupancy numbers to estimate for General Retail the number of Employees (550 sf per person) and Transients (130 sf per person).
For SSc4.2, The number of employees and transients count toward the peak # of building users, and for NC projects we need to provide 5% of that number with bike racks (3% for Core & Shell under 30,000 sf).
What’s the other use of the building? If it’s all commercial uses such as office, you’ll just add up the number of employees and transients for all the building areas to calculate the peak building users for the number of bike racks. You only need to provide bike showers for the employees, so you can exclude the transients from that calculation.
If the mixed use building is residential & retail: the residential occupants need *covered* bike racks for 15% of the residents and their visitors, and the retail occupants need bike racks (that don’t have to be covered) for 5% of the peak retail users (employees + transient customers at the busiest time of day).
Showers: residents have showers in their in the apartments, so that’s provided. For an apartment building with less than 10% retail, in the past projects have not been required to provide showers. Post back here if you need to know more about that issue…