I am designing a renovated surgical suite consisting of 39,789 sf of project area. The total floor plate is 103,223 sf. The building is type I construction with a primary I-2 Occupancy. Other work areas for the project include new air handling units on the roof , new chiller unit in an existing chiller yard, and minor patch and repair outside of the general project area. Total gross area for the building is 413,000 sf. My client believes this should be under LEED for Healthcare or Existing Operation and Maintenance. I believe Commercial Interiors is the appropriate LEED system. Please advise.
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Susan Walter
HDRLEEDuser Expert
1296 thumbs up
April 3, 2013 - 11:51 am
I think you could make a good case for all three programs. EBOM has a lot of policies and plans that would be enacted by your client and not you. Are they progressive with sustainable healthcare operations? If not, I wouldn't recommend EBOM to you. If they are, it could be a way to verify their operational standards and since the project is more than 5% of the floor area, it would likely earn a lot of those credits.
Given that the project is renovating 10% of the total building, I would use CI first. You may want to score the project in either program quickly to see what issues you may have in either program. I think the GBCI will let you use either.
Jeff Russell
AIA, LEED AP BD+CApril 3, 2013 - 8:24 pm
Thank you for your response Susan. I have a follow-up question: Under the Minimum Program Requirements for New Construction, Healthcare:
LEED projects must include the new, ground-up design and construction, or major renovation, of at least one commercial, institutional, or high-rise residential building in its entirety. Given that our project is only 10% of the building, wouldn't considering the building in its entirety prohibit us from achieving several of the available credits. I am just looking for a credible argument on why Healthcare and EBOM are not practical for my project. Thanks for your help.
Susan Walter
HDRLEEDuser Expert
1296 thumbs up
April 4, 2013 - 4:21 pm
I think that it depends on the orginal building and what you could work out with the GBCI. Hospitals are often aggregated buildings with an original building plus additions over time. Is this the case with this existing hospital? You could subdivide the hospital into its constituent buildings and see if your project is a larger percentage within its building. This may make the case to go HC stronger.
Is there a strong driver on the client end? What do they like about it? You may be able to incorporate elements of what they want to accent in their building program in the CI program. Find their passion and play to that with a good game plan on getting the project certified no matter which program you ultimately choose. You may need to do a little research on the USGBC site and show them similar CI certified projects that are also healthcare. Bonus points if you can show them what their competition already did.