Flooring Buyers, Tenants, & Investors with Interactive Solutions

Company: The Elizabeth and The Edge Lofts

“The Interactive Floor Planner was instrumental in reorganizing our thoughts on how we communicate our lofts.
It greatly helped us
achieve our goals.” Alex Hughes,
Debbie Thomas Real Estate

Business Challenge
Sell 80-100% of the new units before construction is complete. That was the bold statement made to Empire in the objectives portion of the brief for the ground-breaking project with Carroll Investments, a premier developer whose latest venture happened to be building two very high-end, loft-style condominiums in downtown Portland's trendy Pearl District: The Elizabeth and The Edge Lofts.

With aesthetically pleasing, modern design and contemporary architecture throughout, these condominiums clearly go beyond fulfilling the basic necessity of having a roof over your head. They were designed as landmarks of quality urban living.

But even with spectacular selling points like that, it was obvious that selling the condominium's units to near capacity before they were even available for in-person tours was going to be a big challenge—but not an impossible one.

The Strategy
Working side-by-side with Debbie Thomas Real Estate—the exclusive broker to both The Elizabeth (www.elizabethlofts.com) and The Edge Lofts (www.edgelofts.com)—Empire's efforts were focused on capitalizing and supporting other sales media and marketing efforts to achieve the impressive business goal.

Putting its interactive expertise to use, Empire provided these potential buyers with a sense of urgency and mystique, as well as built the impression that they already have, at their fingertips, what they need to make an informed purchase—regardless of the fact they've never stepped foot inside the unit.

Empire developed a tool that allowed potential buyers to do more than envision themselves within the space, but to also emotionally connect and design the space according to their tastes.

The Empire Solution
To communicate an overall unique and desirable elegance within each Website, Empire infused design with the photographic and architectural qualities of each building. But it didn't stop there.

The Interactive Floor Planner was the key to providing the excitement-generating experience. Using scaled floor plans of each unit, this Flash-based tool allows users to select specific furniture, choose its color, and arrange it with 360 degree mobility anywhere they see fit. The tool allows owners to realize and find joy in one of the more fun aspects of playing house: laying out the furniture. Ultimately, it proved to be a key driver in the decision to buy.

By design, Empire created the Interactive Floor Planner with enough insight into the future to be used throughout the entire life cycle of the building. In addition to the tool's benefits to residents in the initial sales, it proves its versatility with use in buying and arranging furniture post-sales, and during re-sale and renting to new tenants.

Solutions like this are exactly why Empire was brought in to work on this project. In the end the final result was a perfect blend of the team working together to create the right user experience that connects with prospective buyers, investors, developers, and meets the needs of sales and marketing team.