Rating System

LEED BD+C: New Construction

Rating System Version

v2 - LEED 2.2

Inquiry

Our project is a multi-use complex consisting of 9 total buildings & an underground parking garage. There is a central condenser water plant serving retail spaces with a closed circuit fluid cooler and dual gas fired condensing boilers. Building 1 contains retail space on the street level. Heating and cooling in the retail space is handled by Water Source Heat Pumps served by the central condenser water plant. A theater is located above the retail space. The theater is not served by the central condenser water plant. All utilities associated with the theater are metered separately from the rest of the complex. The theater is being built under a separate building permit and is not part of the LEED scope of this project. Buildings 2 & 3 contain office space and retail space on the street level and 5 floors of residential apartments above the street level. Heating and cooling in the office and retail space is accomplished via Water Source Heat Pumps served by the central condenser water plant. The apartments are heated with electric heat and have no air conditioning. Buildings 4 - 9 are 3 story condominiums. The condos are not served by the central water system. The condos are heated via electric heaters and have no air conditioning. In addition there is a 2 story unconditioned underground parking garage that is under buildings 1 - 7. Buildings 8 and 9 are above ground slab on grade. The entire site contains 279 apartment units which utilize 216,764 square feet, 109 condo units which encompass 103,723 square feet, 56,260 square feet of retail/office space, and 285,109 square feet of underground parking. The condo buildings account for 38% of the total conditioned space. The design team is proposing to include the condos in all aspects of the LEED certification. However, since ASHRAE 90.1 does not apply to low rise multi-family residential buildings of 3 stories or less, we propose to use the Seattle Energy Code, the local governing code, to establish the baseline for the condo buildings. We will perform separate hand calculations for the condo heating/cooling loads, lighting loads, process loads, and fan loads and include these as meter loads in the overall energy simulation to determine the entire site energy cost savings. We will include our condo load calculations in our uploaded documentation. We will also address energy savings associated with the condos in our Narrative for EAc1. We are requesting a ruling to confirm that this approach is acceptable.