We have a project with an existing LEED adjacent building to the new LEED building.
Both buildings are conected by the interior and the exterior and owned by the same landlord. The landlord have expressed the intention of using only the changing room of the adjacent building and not include new showers in the LEED building.
The new building will have bicycle storage.
The adjacent building have enough showers and changing room for the FTE of both buildings
Is this an acceptable strategy to achieve this credit with the correspondent narrative?
Marilyn Specht
Senior Principal | Director of Sustainability IntegrationSmithGroup
LEEDuser Expert
51 thumbs up
June 30, 2017 - 5:28 pm
Hi Angel, yes, as long as you include the adjacent building's occupancy in your calculations (as you've noted above, there is enough to cover both buildings) and you meet the distance requirement (within 200 yards of a building entrance).
Sophie Kerr
Sustainability ConsultantStantec
13 thumbs up
April 26, 2018 - 1:17 pm
Follow up question, must we include the shower(s) in the water calculations?
Emily Purcell
Sustainable Design LeadCannonDesign
LEEDuser Expert
371 thumbs up
April 26, 2018 - 3:24 pm
In v4, you would exclude the outside showers from the prerequisite calculations and include them in the credit calculations. This isn't defined super clearly for v2009, but it's consistent with how LEED-CI spaces using base building fixtures are treated in v2009. Basically keeps you from being penalized in the prereq by any lower-performing fixtures but not claim additional credit if your occupants are using low-performing outside fixtures. So I would consider that the best approach.
Sophie Kerr
Sustainability ConsultantStantec
13 thumbs up
April 26, 2018 - 3:57 pm
Thank you, Emily. LEED 2009 has a document entitled 'Supplemental Guidance to the Minimum Program Requirements revision 2', it states on page 25 that the changing rooms may not be included in the calculations for WE prerequisite but it does not mention the WE credit. Can you point me to the reference for CI?
Emily Purcell
Sustainable Design LeadCannonDesign
LEEDuser Expert
371 thumbs up
April 26, 2018 - 4:10 pm
Sure, I'm thinking of the water use reduction additional guidance doc: https://www.usgbc.org/resources/water-use-reduction-additional-guidance The last 2 pages address CI, Case 3 or 4 are the two options CI projects in this situation can use.
Thanks for the reminder about the example in the MPR guidance! Looks like that and the parking garage example both made it into v4 as clearer, credit-specific guidance.
Of course, the showers probably won't push your project over or under a credit threshold, so you should be fine either way.
Sophie Kerr
Sustainability ConsultantStantec
13 thumbs up
April 27, 2018 - 4:37 pm
Case 3 and 4 are confusing me. Do I claim the shower in my WE credit calculations? I have only 5 FTE but combined with the staff of the adjacent building where the shower is located, there are 99 staff total. I am using LEED v4 CI so there is little indication as to what I should do in this case so LEED 2009 is all I have to go with.
Case 3 and 4 both state fixtures are located both inside and outside tenant space. There are no tenants in our project, it is a university campus, everything is owned by the university. I don't understand why in each case it was decided the fixtures are included or excluded from the WE credit calculations.
Emily Purcell
Sustainable Design LeadCannonDesign
LEEDuser Expert
371 thumbs up
April 27, 2018 - 4:58 pm
Apologies, the original post was referencing NCv2009, so I assumed yours was the same! For CIv4, it is noted in the reference guide under Step By Step Guidance:
Prereq: "
Calculations for the prerequisite are based only on the fixtures within the tenant space (note that this differs for WE Credit Indoor Water Use)."
Credit: " Include fixtures and fittings necessary to meet the needs of the occupants. Some of these fittings and fixtures may be outside the tenant space (for Commercial Interiors) or project boundary (for New Construction). "
Hope that clears things up.
Sophie Kerr
Sustainability ConsultantStantec
13 thumbs up
April 30, 2018 - 12:25 pm
Thank you, Emily.