We have a project, a DC, that is in the middle of a large industrial park. There are no residential units within miles of the site. Is it acceptable to just calculate the density of the commercial buildings (warehouses, offices, etc.)? Can this credit be earned without residential units?
I agree with an earlier post; data centers are not like any other building and should not be lumped into this general category.
David Edenburn
Emily Purcell
Sustainable Design LeadCannonDesign
LEEDuser Expert
318 thumbs up
April 4, 2019 - 9:55 am
Yes, you can earn this without residential units. Even for projects in dense urban areas, project teams might show compliance by calculating based on one or two high-rise office buildings and disregard residential lots. The best way to do this would be to use the combined density number, which simply takes square footage of building area over acres of buildable land, regardless of use.
Agreed that this is not well suited to data centers - seems like locating those in highly populated areas is counter to good urban design. I wonder what would work better for rewarding good site selection...
David Edenburn
ESD ConsultantRetired
17 thumbs up
April 4, 2019 - 11:49 pm
Thank you. After I posted the question I re-read the standard and came to the same conclusion. Nice to know others are doing it this way.
For DC's probably the "greenest" way is to put them in previously developed sites or buildings, perhaps all those empty shopping malls. One that I am working on is a retrofit of an old warehouse, which is essentially what a DC is; a warehouse for data. LEED should consider allowing that classification until they get around to writing a special standard for DC's.
Emily Purcell
Sustainable Design LeadCannonDesign
LEEDuser Expert
318 thumbs up
April 5, 2019 - 9:47 am
That makes sense, I was trying to think of something not covered elsewhere in the rating system and drawing a blank - but just weighting the building reuse and sensitive land credits heavier would be a good start.