We are designing a 4 story building where the owner will occupy 3-1/2 floors of the building and another tenant will at some point occupy the remaining portion. Per the reference guides, this falls under the New Construction (in lieu of Core & Shell) because the owner/developer occupies more than 50% of the building's leasable square footage.
Our question is regarding what is required in the baseline and proposed energy modeling to account for the other tenants, particularly in regards to the mechanical system, power loads, and lighting. This space will be left empty except for limited mechanical systems to prevent fire sprinkler lines from freezing and a handful of light fixtures so that the space can be shown - so do we model these few units as designed/installed? Or do we model the space as it might be per CS Appendix 2 (Core & Shell Energy Modeling Guidelines)? Or do we exclude this space altogether?
LIGHTING
Our owner/developer space includes a LED lighting fixture design throughout. If we are required to model the "other tenant" space are we allowed to model the baseline with typical fixtures and the proposed with LED fixtures?
MECHANICAL
The entire building is served by a variable refrigerant flow (VRF) zoning system so is it safe to assume modeling the baseline/proposed designs similar to how the owner/developer space has been designed?
Julia Weatherby
PresidentWeatherby Design & Co. Engineers
94 thumbs up
November 8, 2013 - 1:35 pm
Cory-
We had a similar situation with an owner occupied building and part left unfinished for a future tenant space. It was also a VRF system. My recollection is that we modeled the building as it was expected to be at final fit out, and that worked out all right.
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5909 thumbs up
November 8, 2013 - 4:03 pm
If the systems have been designed or there are requirements in the tenant lease agreement you can model the proposed as designed. If there is no design or lease agreement related to these issues then those spaces must be modeled in the proposed identically with the baseline. So basically you follow the CS Modeling guidelines.