West Palm Beach, FL (December 10, 2020) — Spinnaker Group was launched in 2003 from the home office of co-founders Rob Hink and Virginia Snyder. The goal for their two-person company? To provide best-in-class sustainable consulting services to design, construction and operations teams to foster improved human health, wellness and resilience for buildings and communities. Almost two decades later, the mission remains intact, and the company has made a lasting — and ongoing — impact on the environment, especially in its home-based South Florida community.
Last month, the award-winning firm reached and surpassed a noteworthy milestone when two projects — Paradise Plaza in the Miami Design District and Seaboard Marine Port of Miami — became the company’s 150th and 151st projects to earn prestigious LEED certification by the US Green Building Council. Paradise Plaza achieved LEED Gold, while Seaboard Marine secured LEED Silver.
Click on the links below to learn specifics about these two impressive LEED projects:
- Paradise Plaza — #150 — https://www.spinnakergroup.com/paradise-plaza.html. Spinnaker Group provided LEED Consulting, Building Commissioning and Energy Modeling for this 149,272 sf project, which earned LEED Gold, encompassing the re-development of two full city blocks in the already booming Miami Design District.
- Seaboard Marine — #151 — https://www.spinnakergroup.com/seaboard-marine.html. Spinnaker Group provided LEED Consulting and Building Commissioning for this 12,822 sf Port of Miami Maintenance Facility for Seaboard Marine, which secured LEED Silver certification for this regional ocean transportation and logistics company,
Company President Jonathan Burgess, a key member of the Spinnaker team since 2012, purchased Spinnaker Group from the co-founders in 2018. “We have achieved this milestone through hard work and the dedication of our many outstanding team members over the years. I give a strong, appreciative nod, as well, to our culture of customer service and professionalism, and extend our sincere thanks to those many AEC firms and clients who trusted us to deliver projects that have each been exceptional, highest-quality examples of sustainability and green building.”
In addition to the 151 LEED certified projects in its portfolio, the firm has more than 700 million sf of commissioned building space worldwide and 200+ projects in the pipeline. In addition to LEED, today’s Spinnaker Group works with a wide variety of green building rating systems as anchors of its sustainable consulting services. Spinnaker’s diverse team of design and construction professionals offers project management, energy modeling, fundamental and enhanced building commissioning, neighborhood planning, operations and maintenance consulting, indoor air quality testing, and lifecycle analyses for all types of building projects.
As one of the most respected leaders in the green-building movement, Spinnaker’s rich and eventful history includes projects spread throughout the USA, South America, Europe and Kuwait. The firm’s 151 LEED certified projects to date (more than half of which are either LEED Platinum or Gold) run across a broad spectrum of project types, from Healthcare, Education, Government, Ports and Neighborhood Development to Parks, Retail, Airports, Office Buildings … and more. For a full listing of Spinnaker Projects, visit https://www.spinnakergroup.com/projects.html.
A decade-plus of sustainability and resilience consulting has also included assisting cities across Florida to develop green-building regulations and incentives for public and private sector development. Notes Burgess, “From our beginnings, our team members have been active volunteers and advocates in community, regional and national areas of respective interest. Educating the industry and broader community is the cornerstone of our work — which we do even virtually during these challenging COVID times.”
Since striking out early in 2003 in what was then a pioneering role in South Florida’s emerging green-building market, Spinnaker team members have had a strong track record of serving in volunteer capacities as leaders (e.g., committee Chairs and Board members) with local nonprofits and municipalities. The company has a strong corporate commitment to charitable giving to worthy causes within the South Florida community, the region and even nationally. “Part of being good community citizens is giving back. Corporate philanthropy makes a difference, enriching the lives of individuals as well as of those organizations that are the beneficiaries of our gestures of support,” said Burgess.
“This is important work,” concludes Burgess. “Our role as green-building consultants allows us to support the greater green-building community by participating in integrated conversations with some of the top design, construction, operations and maintenance professionals globally, and at the same time connect locally with the buildings’ end-users to hear their personal stories about why going green is such an important contribution to making tangible progress tied to climate change, environmental challenges, wellness and resiliency. I am immensely proud of the journey we’ve been on, and I’m even more excited about what the future will hold for Spinnaker Group.”
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LEED – LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the most widely used green building rating system in the world. Available for virtually all building, community and home project types, LEED provides a framework to create healthy, highly efficient and cost-saving green buildings. Created by the U.S. Green Building Council in Washington, DC, LEED certification is a globally recognized symbol of sustainability achievement. The voluntary, consensus-based rating system for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings is designed to inspire project teams to seek innovative solutions that support public health and our environment, while saving building owners money over a project’s life cycle. LEED Accredited Professionals (LEED APs) have demonstrated a thorough understanding of green building techniques and the LEED Green Building Rating System.