This bike- and pedestrian-friendly multifamily concept incorporates various home options
One of our favorite clients and humans, Kevin Jones, has helped shift real estate’s mantra from “location, location, location” to “location, concept, timing” in a new South Carolina multifamily concept community.
Grab Your Bike
In this community, you will see bicycles that cost more than the residents’ cars, says Kevin – and for good reason: He and development partners, Pinestone Builders, created a small-town layout that links homes, restaurants, parks and nearby recreation with easily walkable and bikeable routes. He says it creates a little slice of Colorado in South Carolina, and we love that marriage of two great regional cultures (this makes the Après Creative Colorado natives’ hearts sing!).
Pinestone, located in the town of Travelers Rest, features three parks and a tree-lined greenway for residents to enjoy, in addition to commercial office space and community gathering areas. Home options include 100 single-family homes, 35 row-style townhomes and an amenity-rich multifamily apartment community with 250 units. You can read more about the community here.
Selling Home, Three Ways
Alongside Cushman Wakefield and Longbranch Development, Après Creative joined the project to help differentiate the three home options available at Pinestone. We developed a visual identity system that is a trio of similar symbol structures that reflect the unique offering of each product type. The symbols reflect the community as a whole, working harmoniously together or standing on their own.
For the multifamily community, we used a stylized S with a trail map vibe to reflect the connected aspect of the Pinestone community.
The Rows icon depicts the row-style townhomes as one of Pinestone’s for-rent options.
Finally, the single-family homes combine a tree symbol that also mimics a compass to reflect the community’s several parks and to point toward home.
Reflecting a variety of product options under a cohesive look helps Pinestone tell its unique concept brand story. This mixed-used community truly offers a little something for everyone.
Location, Concept, Timing
As Kevin told Marketplace Greenville, Pinestone represents the best of location, concept and timing, which boils down to:
- Location. The highly sought-after Swamp Rabbit Trail, a 22-mile bike and walking path that follows the Reedy River, runs directly through Travelers Rest.
- Concept. As more people choose to live, work and play in the same place, the mixed-use concept with various living options and parks appeals to a variety of residents.
- Timing. Communities like Pinestone have expanded their vision of what a residential community looks like at a time when people are looking for something more than disconnected or cookie-cutter options.
For other developers around the country, it pays to take note of some of these trends. Renters and home buyers alike are searching for different locations and have different priorities than in years’ past. In the age of remote or hybrid work, people can expand their searches to include places that meet more of their lifestyle needs.
As Spacewise reports in its 2022 moving trends piece:
“Due to the shifting economy, rise in remote work opportunities, and desire to relocate to less densely populated areas, more than one in ten Americans moved in the first part of 2021 alone.”
Those trends include a desire for more affordable locations and homes, as well as more space. In many cases, suburbs have won out over urban centers, Spacewise adds:
“An examination of U.S. moving patterns revealed a nationwide shift from downtown communities to the surrounding suburbs, indicating a rise in desirability for suburban living. Able to work remotely and no longer attached to city centers, homebuyers often looked to purchase housing in less dense neighborhoods.”
So, we think Kevin and Pinestone are definitely on to something. Now is the time to create something different and to set a new standard for the work-play-live model.
Ready to create a new brand or rebrand your multifamily community? Reach out to us to learn more about our collaborative process and check out our portfolio for recent projects.
