Hello everyone-

I have basically two questions in one, regarding how to treat additional buildings on your site.

Project Background: I have an 880,000 SF site. We are renovating the existing building on site (footprint = 180,000 SF) and it is pursuing LEED CS 2009. There is an existing parking garage (footprint = 100,000 SF) that we are also renovating. It is not connected to the main building. There are potentially two new buildings (footprint = 30,000 each) that will be built within the same LEED Boundary. These buildings will not be connected to either the parking garage nor the 180,000 SF building pursuing LEED CS certification. Everything on site is under the same ownership.

1. How do I treat the Parking Garage? For site calculations, do I add the garage footprint with my 180,000 SF building footprint? Or do I treat the garage as "flat" and since the top level is concrete, treat it as a hardscape surface? The garage is also 3 stories tall. Do I include the GSF of the garage (300,000 SF) with the building GSF? The language that you treat the non-certifying building as "an extension of the certifying building" is slightly throwing me off. If I take this literally, I believe the garage footprint would be added to the building footprint. But then I'd want to add the GSF of the garage with the GSF of the building, but fear this could throw off other calculations? Would then the top level of the garage be treated as a roof and be added to my main building roof SF?

2. How do I treat the potential 2 new buildings? These buildings could or could not happen. If they do happen, the owner has said they will not pursue LEED certification. Our current site plan shows this area as "future building." I'm not sure what to calculate this square footage as - in the interim, it will be grass, as we await the decision of the owner to build or not to build. Should I count the SF as grass then? Or do I remove the SF from the LEED boundary? If I remove the SF from the LEED boundary, would it be gerrymandering if I have two rectangular cut outs within my LEED boundary?

Thank you for reading my novel of a question...any insight is appreciated.