Hotel project with multiple buildings

Hello Wei Jiang, Buildings that are only connected by spaces dedicated to circulation, such as covered or enclosed walkways, are still considered separate buildings, as explained in item 'a' of the fourth bullet-point on page 22 of the LEED 2009 MPR Supplemental Guidance (http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=10131).

The answer to your second question depends upon which LEED rating system you are pursuing. According to page 10 of the latest AGMBC (https://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=10486), the requirement that the buildings in a "Group Certification" application be "substantially similar" only applies to LEED-EBOM. In BD+C projects the requirements for pursuing Group Certification are a little different and have more to do with whether or not they are all being built simultaneously and under a single contract. Please refer to the latest AGMBC document referenced above for details.

Nevertheless, in LEED-EBOM, the referenced standard for the essential prerequisite EAp2 (and for EAc1) is the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, and "Hotel" projects are explicitly allowed to include multiple buildings for a single rating in ENERGY STAR. Consequently, there may be special considerations for an LEED-EBOM Hotel/Resort project that consists of multiple buildings. Related considerations may apply if you are referring to a Design & Construction rating system such as LEED-NC. Please feel free to submit more information on your project via the GBCI.org contact page (http://www.gbci.org/org-nav/contact/Contact-Us/Project-Certification-Que...) for additional feedback.

The MPR document has a very confusing sentence to describe the conditions that must be met.

Doesn't bullet four letter (a) on page 22 of the MPR document say that if the "circulation of people is contiguous throught the structure" then the multiple superstructures can be considered one building? That would suggest that a covered walkway (or simply a sidewalk) that provides contiguous circulation of people from one superstructure to another superstructure would qualify both superstructures as one building.

Alternatively, if you read it as "Space that (1 can be included in the gross floor area of the project that serves a purpose other than parking or the circulation of people (2 is contiguous throughout the structure", then you might be led to believe that a covered walkway does not allow the superstructures to be considered one building because its primary purpose is for the circulation of people. This doesn't quite make sense for superstructures separated by a conditioned hallway though even though it meets that criteria.

Alternatively again, if you read it as "Space that (1 can be included in the gross floor area of the project (2 that serves a purpose other than parking or (3 the circulation of people is contiguous throughout the structure", then you might be led to believe that a covered walkway does allow the superstructures to be considered one building because it can be included in the project area, it serves a purpose other than parking, and its primary purpose is for the contiguous circulation of people. A few commas or bullets would go a long way here. Maybe a definition of contiguous for the purpose of people circulation also.

Is there any additional info to support one interpretation or the other since this statement is quite confusing?

Matt, if it helps at all, I can offer one perspective from the EBOM world, which is that this is really an area where there is a spectrum of situations which tend towards one side or the other, with the middle being the most difficult to assess. Open sidewalks between buildings are clearly not meaningful connections, and in my experience putting a roof over those sidewalks does not change that situation substantially from a LEED standpoint. The scale tips when that walkway has walls and becomes a ventilated, conditioned space; now there's a reasonable argument that the building(s) are actually one building. Also, the presumption on GBCI's part is always that separate buildings are separate buildings - you have to assume that's the case unless you're pretty darn sure your connecting structure meets their (sometimes challenging) definitions. I'm not sure if I've helped at all, but . . .
Dan

Dan, I've been pursuing a LEED EBOM certification on a building that is an office building with an attached canteen. Its used for brief periods during the day, but not continuously and with no permanent occupancy. (Its staffed for 1/2 the day by 5 staff (3 kitchen staff and 2 cleaners)

I took the advice in bullet point 4 to mean buildings that are legitimately separate buildings--for instance on a campus where two buildings might be connected by a walkway --and with permanent occupants.

Where I work in Vietnam its extremely common to lay one building out as two or more pavilions, since it helps natural ventilation, and especially separating the canteen to keep cooking smells out of the main building area. In this case this is a 1-story single-purpose canteen, under 3,000 ft2, which is separated by a 10-foot long covered walkway and sits adjacent to the main building. Most of the building services are connected including metering, building management software and plumbing connections, as is the site layout including landscaping,parking, etc. It wouldn't be possible to separate the buildings in any meaningful way, nor is it currently possible to certify these as two separate buildings (due to the no permanent occupants clause) or with via certification under a LEED multi-building campus certification (since the complete advice is still unavailable)

I've also contemplated dropping the canteen from the certification, and just certify the main building, but decided not to do it, since this would be pointless and awkward in the extreme. In the end some of the best EBOM improvements were made in the canteen. I assume I'll be challenged, but I think I've carried out the right strategy. What do you think?

I should have added that the canteen was built at the same time, by the same contractor, shares the same owner and is only used by the office workers.

Fun question Melissa – I think the only way I can answer it with reasonable precision is in person, so you’ll just have to fly me out to Vietnam for a few weeks to really think it over. . . In the interim, I do have a few more useful thoughts:
1. I think we would both agree that the easiest path from a certification standpoint is to certify the office building and exclude the canteen; that will take this issue off the table with GBCI and honestly, most visitors to the building won’t know the difference. So when I think about this situation, the first question I ask is ‘Why not just certify the office building?’
2. The answer to the question above, most often, is energy metering, or more accurately a lack thereof. My assumption is that the canteen is not separately metered for energy use, and that doing so is fairly (if not prohibitively) expensive. Which puts you in the position of wondering if that space can reasonably be included.
3. This issue pops up in office parks as well – two buildings next to each other share a meter for district steam, for example – but USGBC’s intent is to promote separate metering for distinct buildings as much as possible. Their default is to assume that when in doubt, meter more! So the burden of proof, as it were, is on you to prove that these are legitimately a single building .
4. The nature of the canteen seems to support your argument. Imagining a naturally ventilated eating area with small kitchen & food-prep directly adjacent to (and only 10-feet away from) the main offices leads me to be pretty sympathetic. On the other hand, 3000 GSF isn’t nothing – I have some instinct that the size of the canteen relative to the offices may be important here (if the canteen is a tiny fraction of the total GSF, that would support your argument to include it, I think).
5. So while I’m leaning towards thinking including the canteen is probably acceptable, the tactical choices facing you are the same regardless – take the ‘submit it and apologize afterward’ approach and hope that GBCI can live with your strategy, or submit an interpretation request and risk having to change the plan. I don’t think either choice is wildly inappropriate here – its just a question of how risk-averse you (and your client) are.
Hope that helps at least a little,
Dan

Dan, thanks for your food for thought. We've decided to go ahead; we're only a week away now from submitting. The canteen doesn't qualify under MPR rules as a separate building and we would have a hard time justifying splitting the site considering the very clear rules for certifying only part of a site (the canteen has the same owner, name, address and shares the same site as the office building with no clear boundary separation). If the assessors really feel we've made a wrong move and they want us to try to split the site and just certify the office building, I am sure we can go back and re-submit without it, though I would wonder what would be gained by rejecting part of the building for a certification like EBOM where proper management should include the entire property. Nevertheless we've checked over the credits and have "plan b" ready.