Our project is a 19,000 sq.ft., one-story retail shell building in Oro Valley, Arizona, registered under LEED for Core and Shell V.2.0. Unfortunately, the project was already fully designed when the owner decided to seek a LEED Certification. In this building, we expect to have six to ten retail tenants in the building. The project expects to begin construction in July and be occupied sometime in the fall of 2008. Since the LEED for Retail program is not accepting any new applicants and appears to be unlikely to release a final version before the end of 2008, we are left with some not very good options for meeting the LEED EAp1. As it stands, the current LEED-CS Reference Guide is way out of date and cannot be used easily to cover this type of project. In this type of "vanilla shell" building, the owner is providing about 12 rooftop HVAC units, but tenants are responsible for providing lighting and lighting controls. We have integrated LEED-specific tenant build-out requirements in the tenant leases, based on the ASHRAE Advanced Energy Design Guide (AEDG) for Small Retail. Currently, the LEED for Retail rating system version 2, pilot program, allows the use of the AEDG for Small Retail for meeting EAc1. Specifically, we propose to "Comply with the prescriptive measures of ASHRAE Advanced Energy Design Guide for Small Retail Buildings 2004," to achieve the two-point minimum under EAc1. As it stands, the only other (non-modeling) compliance option, found as Option 3 of the LEED-CS Reference Guide, is out of date and cannot be used for any project. Therefore, it seems logical in retail projects such as this one, to use the AEDG for Small Retail instead. Based on our current assessment, this project is likely to meet the requirements for LEED Silver certification. An earlier Credit Interpretation Ruling for EAc1, dated 2/22/08, appears to rule out the use of the AEDG for Small Office for office projects with a retail component. However, the CIR didn\'t specifically deal with an all-retail project and the possibility of using the ASHRAE Small Retail guide. The AEDG for Small Retail is currently the best (and in some cases the only good) option available for meeting the EA1 prerequisite in this type of core and shell retail project and for assessing compliance with the EA1 standards. Therefore, we propose to use the prescriptive path in the AEDG for Small Retail buildings, since it will yield approximately the same energy savings results as the AEDG for Small Offices, but is more appropriate for this type of core and shell retail building.