LEED rating for multiple buildings

[ngregina12]

I would like to ask if there are 3 blocks in the same site, one to be owner occupied and the other to be core and shell and one block is retail, all developed by the same company, what kind of rating should I go for?

Do I have to apply for certification separately for the two blocks even though they are on the same site?

Would appreciate if someone could advise on this. Thanks

Regina Ng
IEN consultants

[joelmckellar]

Tough question... I would guess that if less than 50% of the floor area for all three buildings is occupied by the owner, then you could go with LEED-CS and certify the buildings all as one.

My limited experience with certifying multiple buildings at once is that there is a definite possibility of losing points because of a single building. For instance, if one building does not achieve the daylighting credit and the other two do, then the project as a whole does not achieve the credit.

Conversely, there are some situations where the opposite is true. For instance, if you have rainwater harvesting on one building and use it to flush toilets, you can share the water use savings with the other buildings, possibly averaging out to a higher point level.

In any case, I didn't see the multiple buildings application as saving me any time doing the paperwork, as you still need to run the calculations for each building individually. It could make the site calculations more simple, but overall my experience has been neutral.

If the buildings are each very large, (over 500,000 sf), you could potentially save a decent amount (about $45,000) in review fees, but if the three buildings add up to less than 500,000 sf total, then you won't save any money there either.

One of our clients asked for the individual certifications only because they wanted a LEED plaque for each building! It's certainly understandable (you can't pay the USGBC for extra plaques), and we didn't mind because the joint certification wouldn't have saved us much time anyway.

Hope this helps!

Joel

[bharat]

i had a similr situation and asked USGBC - this is thier reply - You have the option in this case. Building type does not matter as they can be aggregated at http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=1097
Registration depends on if you are combining all buildings into one certification using the guide at http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=1097
If you are doing them separate, you will have to register separate