You didn't say if it was actually a building or just a sidewalk type of pedestrian slab. If there is a building involved, I'd want the footings low enough so any work on the box would not undermine the footings. Actually I always coordinate footing elevations with buried piping elevations for just that reason. It's unsettling to see what plumbers do to the soil around footings during construction, so my footings are always below piping.
If you are just talking about a slab, the box must have been designed for some fill and live loads above it, so perhaps slab on grade is not unreasonable, but a bit of inquiring into what the box design was based on might be helpful.