Applying Data to Design Thinking: Helping Shape Communities for Canada's Largest REIT
Applying Data to Design Thinking: Helping Shape Communities for Canada's Largest REIT
Background
RioCan REIT is Canada’s largest shopping centre owner, managing a commercial property portfolio worth $14B with a net leasable area of 44M square feet. To optimize values, the company has been redeveloping certain retail-only sites into mixed use purpose-built rental residential communities under its RioCan Living brand. These developments need identities to inform place design and marketing strategies.
We needed to create distinctive communities in 16 (so far) locations across Canada, each with an authentic sense of place that attracts demand to achieve specified absorption, occupancy and revenue targets.
Charting a Course
We analyze neighbourhood and regional population data to Identify viable audience segments and conduct qualitative and quantitative research with these audiences to establish practical and emotional needs. We define a positioning and a community narrative to guide placemaking, visual identity, retail curation and resident experience strategy, and develop playbooks to inspire architecture, interior design, landscape and overall tenant experience design.
Arriving at the Destination
RioCan continues to aggressively grow their residential platform across Canada, with 40 projects in various states of development, with Blackjet as a strategic partner.
The Blackjet team are an extension of our internal team. They have worked closely with us for over 4 years helping RioCan launch an aggressive residential growth platform. Their team has not only helped shape our brand development process, they’ve identified new audiences, new opportunities for differentiation and helped drive a premium for RioCan Living.
