Our project is a 14 story residential building located in MD. Of the building is 152,740 sf with 150,340 sf of residential and 2,400 sf of ground floor retail. The main building occupants will be the 343 residents. The retail space, which for this project\'s purposes is core and shell space, will be occupied by an estimated 5 retail employees, and 19 retail transients.Our question is in regard to the shower requirement of SSc4.2. Given that the retail space comprises only 1.5% of the total floor area of the project, and will be served by only 5 employees, we propose that the project not be required to provide showers and changing facilities for the retail employees. The project will provide bike racks for the residents (343 residents x 15% = 52 bikes), as well as retail employees and retail transients (24 retail employees/transients x 5% = 2 bikes).To support this proposal, we draw on a previous CIR Ruling dated 4/4/2005 which stated that, "If the mixed-use building is less than 10% commercial square feet, the entire building can be considered residential and adhere to the residential requirements."
The Project Team is inquiring whether the shower and changing facility requirements of SSc4.2 can be exempt for the retail area of a mixed use building where the retail area comprises approximately 1.6% of the total building area. For guidance on this issue, the project should refer to LI 10209 which describes how mixed-use projects with a nonresidential square footage of less than 10% and no greater than 5,000 square feet can document credit compliance. Regarding the use of Retail Supplement compliance paths, since rating systems are comprehensive, substituting the Retail Supplement\'s credit requirements for parts of a building project is granted on a case-by-case basis. Given the allowance provided by LI XXXX, it would not be an appropriate to allow additional approaches to documenting credit achievement.