The building in question will be a 200,000 square feet warehouse with a 300 square feet office space. The warehouse space will be used for storage of goods and materials that will be transported to an adjacent facility (within 1/8 of a mile) for use in product manufacturing. The employees of the warehouse facility will spend a majority of their day within the office space except for the occasional need to go out into the warehouse space to receive and stock incoming shipments, or transition of these goods and materials to the adjacent facility. As such, is the warehouse space considered "regularly occupied" space? If so, would the installation of roof mounted skylights providing a consistent illumination level of 25 footcandles throughout 75% of the warehouse space fulfill the requirements of this credit - if no exterior wall windows are provided? Please rule if this strategy would be consistent with the intent of this credit.
The CIR inquiry is posing two different questions. The first question is inquiring if a warehouse space that is largely unoccupied, with the exception of short term efforts to transfer stored materials, can be excluded from the requirements of this credit. The second question asks if horizontal skylights can be used in lieu of wall mounted windows to achieve the required 25 footcandle levels within the warehouse space. Per the submitted narrative, the workers that handle the warehouse materials are regularly assigned to office space elsewhere in the building and only occasionally enter the warehouse for the purpose of handling shipments. Under this specific case, the warehouse can be reasonably excluded from the requirements of the daylight calculations for the purposes of this credit. That said, the workers that enter the warehouse would benefit from daylighting if it is provided.