Rating System

LEED BD+C: New Construction, LEED BD+C: Core and Shell, LEED BD+C: Schools

Rating System Version

v3 - LEED 2009, v2 - Schools 2007, v2 - LEED 2.2, v2 - LEED 2.0

Inquiry

We have a question concerning how to draw the LEED project boundary of the C&S project described below. The goal of our client is to develop a sustainable shopping center and therefore planning has been executed with high standards of green building design. The scope of the project is a shopping center that is being built on a previously developed site in an urban environment. Some areas of the shopping center are built under ground level and one part extends underneath an old office building located on the site. There are also two residential buildings being constructed as a separate project on top of the shopping center. This is an example of building stacking, which increases development density and enhances community connectivity. Question: Can the office and residential buildings left outside the LEED project boundary despite the fact that the buildings are physically attached to the shopping center? Justification: The shopping center, the office building and the residential buildings form their own legal entities. In the country where the project is located the real estate register is 3-dimensional and the buildings are legally seen as separate real estate. Therefore the shopping center developer does not have control over the office building located and the residential buildings being built on top of the shopping center. The bottom floor of the office building is detached from the office building, rebuilt and attached to the new shopping center, but the rest of the office building is not within the scope of the shopping center development project and will be left as it is. The construction of the residential buildings is a totally separate project with a different time schedule and constructor. If the buildings were built side by side there would not be any doubt about project boundaries. Locating the office and residential buildings on top of the shopping center instead of being built side by side increases development density and enhances community connectivity. We see that the shopping center solely forms a LEED project in this case.