The 75 Station Landing project is a seven story, 175,000 SF residential apartment building with 168 apartments and 8,500 SF of core/shell retail space. The building is located in a new mixed-use, transit-oriented development located adjacent to the Wellington MBTA Station in Medford, MA. The project is seeking certification under LEED for New Construction v2.2. The Owner would like to pursue EAc6, Green Power, for the common areas and systems of the project. Each apartment has its own utility electric meter, as does the core/shell retail space, and each tenant will be responsible to pay their own electric bill. Therefore, the only electricity use over which the Owner will have control is the common areas and central systems. We have not been able to find any CBECS data for apartment buildings. The LEED NC v2.2 Reference manual appears to be silent on how to approach this issue, and the LEED CS v2.0 reference manual, while including a method for calculating core and shell electric use for many different types of buildings, also appears to be silent concerning apartment buildings. Please confirm that the following approach will be acceptable to USGBC for EAc6 compliance: Using the energy model created for EAc1 compliance, we will sum the electricity used in common areas, corridors, lobbies, amenity areas and offices. We will exclude the electricity used within the apartment units. Common Area electricity uses will include, but not be limited to: lighting (indoors and out), miscellaneous common area power, elevators, main building condenser water system (for the apartment heat pumps), central toilet exhaust riser fans, and HVAC for common areas. We expect that will exceed the normal 15% default minimum that is required under LEED-CS. We will exclude the electricity used in the apartments, which will be for lighting, miscellaneous apartment power, and water source heat pump units. We propose to purchase a minimum of 35% green power (that complies with the green power requirements and definitions already in LEED NC v2.2) for a period of two years for the Common Area electricity used as described above. We would also propose that an innovation credit be available if the project purchased 70% of the Common Area green power for a period of two years, or if the project purchased 35% green power for a period of four years.
The applicant is seeking clarification regarding if residential spaces within a mixed-use LEED-NC project can be excluded from consideration when determining the quantity of green energy required for compliance. No, it is not acceptable to exclude any areas within the LEED-NC project when determining the required green energy purchase. It should be noted that while the building owner may not be responsible for the residential energy use, green tags may be purchased and allocated to the residential areas of the building by the building owner. Applicable Internationally.