Tenants often wonder how to apply WELL features to their project boundary if they do not always have control of certain aspects of the environment or do not have the ability to change certain attributes of the base building.

First, explore guidance for what should be included in your project boundary as a tenant:

• Include occupiable space
• Note that exterior building components are part of base building, not interiors
• Exclude parking garages and/or mechanical rooms
• Exclude stairwells meant solely as a fire escape

Next, review guidance on applying WELL features when you may have a limited scope as a tenant:

• Ventilation and mechanical systems within your space must meet precondition feature requirements.
• Bathrooms and other areas managed by the building owner—or otherwise out of your control—can be considered outside the scope of your project.
• If your project does not provide drinking water within the project boundary, bathroom fixtures or other sources of drinking water outside the project boundary will be tested.
• A02.2: Prohibit Outdoor Smoking is considered out of scope if no external space is included in the boundary. An outdoor smoking ban is required on terraces or balconies, if applicable.
• If a project does not provide or sell food on a daily basis (defined as the majority of days during the operating week) it may consider some preconditions not applicable. However, a project is still responsible for earning a minimum number of optimization points depending on the level of certification the project is targeting. For these projects, optimizations such as N04: Food Advertising, N07: Nutrition Education, N08: Mindful Eating, N10: Food Preparation, N12: Food Production and N13: Local Food Environment may be relevant as they do not require the provision of food.
• Feature V05: Site Planning and Selection can be achieved for interiors if the base building meets the feature requirements.
• Other feature-specific space applicability questions are often addressed within the FAQs of a feature in the WELL Building Standard.

Project Boundary Allowances

Feature language specifies the distance allowed for each strategy:

Some features explicitly enable a space within a certain distance of the project boundary to be used toward feature requirements

For example, Feature N08 requires a designated eating space within a 200 m [650 ft] walk distance of the project boundary. In these cases, the distance is measured along a pedestrian-accessible path from a functional building entrance (elevation change should not be considered in its calculation).

If located outside of the project boundary, the space is not subject to the requirements of other features pursued by the project.

These spaces may also be provided within the project boundary, in which case, they are also subject to meeting other WELL requirements. 

Certain features include a certification note for interior projects that enable them to claim credit for amenities provided by their base building outside the project boundary

For example, an interior fit-out project may use the stairs which connect the entrance to the ground floor (if occupant-accessible) toward Feature V03.

If a feature prescribes a certain quantity of amenities (such as the number of long-term bicycle parking spaces in Feature V04), an interiors project may take credit for the base building meeting this feature as long as these amenities are either reserved for the WELL project or sized for all occupants in the building.