On a large commercial highrise core-and-shell project, the flooring, paints, hallway carpeting, and other pre-tenant improvement finish features are identical on every floor. One floor is aready occupied; the rest are currently vacant (although others will be soon occupied). Because of the time of year, the two-week flushout is not practical for this building, and testing every floor would be very costly simply to document practices that were already performed. We propose that we can meet the intent of this credit by: 1. conducting the IAQ tests in every 25,000 sf space or continguous floor area, whichever is larger, as approved in the CIR ruling dated 9/6/2002, but on only one floor as a respresentative sample of the building, 2. have our mechancial engineer or general contractor certify that every floor is finished identically, and that the occupied floor was finished identically to the tested floor prior to any tenant improvement work.
The intent of this credit is to eliminate indoor air quality problems that occur as a result of construction. Architectural finishes used in tenant build-outs constitute a significant source of air pollutants, and must be addressed if a project would like to achieve EQ Credit 3.1 and/or 3.2 within the "LEED for New Construction" rating system. If significant build-outs remain to be completed at the time of the LEED certification review (as is the assumed case for your core and shell project), EQ Credit 3.2 is not applicable unless the project follows the guidance of the Administrative CIR dated 5/17/2002 (located in the "Administrative Inquiries" section) regarding build-out requirements for leases. Testing one floor to represent all other floors in the building is not acceptable, as tenant build-outs invariably contain different types and amounts of materials. Finished spaces can be tested per the referenced standard or as stated in the CIR dated 9/6/2002 (in this section). Upcoming core and shell projects are advised to use the "LEED - Core and Shell" rating system that has been developed. Applicable internationally.