Rating System

LEED BD+C: New Construction

Rating System Version

v2 - LEED 2.0

Inquiry

The City has a program of prototype buildings for a number of building uses, libraries, police stations, and fire stations. Our project is a re-design of a police station prototype building that is being altered to meet LEED certification criteria. The unaltered prototype has already been constructed in several locations. The nature of the prototype program brings a few unique issues to the LEED process for which some direction will be helpful. First, we are interested hiring a third party commissioning agent as part of the LEED process with the goal of satisfying both the prerequisite requirements and the additional commissioning credit. The commissioning agent will be engaged prior to full development of the LEED changes and CDs for this building. The commissioning authority will perform all of the tasks listed under the prerequisite and the credit. Does this meet the intent of EA Credit 3? Further, due to the nature of the prototype program, this project brings with it a unique opportunity where the exact, or very similar, building has already been built without a green initiative. We are interested in comparing the performance of our LEED prototype to the existing prototype for an innovation credit. Would the USGBC find such a study valuable? And, if so would this provide the project with an innovation credit?