LOCATION: BOSTON SEAPORT
YEAR: 2016-2020
TYPE: ADAPTIVE REUSE

PROJECT OVERVIEW

THE CHALLENGE: From 2016 – 2021, Isenberg Projects worked with Jamestown Property Management to help create consumer facing engagements through targeted activations at The Innovation and Design Building in Boston’s Seaport. The primary focus of this work is to provide guidance on retail, design and community engagement that supports office leasing, and community awareness of the property’s offerings. While The Innovation and Design Building is now home to dozens of companies with several thousand employees, it showed struggles with developing authentic experiences that built community while in the midst of a large transition of its former use. Our challenge was to strategically develop a community that intersected office tenants with a growing retail year round while creating distinct messaging and programming.
THE OUTCOME:  To address these struggles, Isenberg Projects strategized unique concepts designed to identify trends within food culture, start-ups, and burgeoning retailers, crafting a narrative that would simultaneously attract IDB’s future office tenants and appeal to existing tenants. This required one of a kind offerings dynamic enough to attract visitors to the Seaport and help bridge a closer connection to the city of Boston. The end result is a thriving ecosystem of programs that bring 100,000’s of the Boston community to the property year round. IDB has in the last 3 years leased up to 85% capacity and has become a destination for innovative companies’ flagship offices. Reebok, America’s Test Kitchen and Living Proof are recent tenants that have cemented IDB as more than the Seaport, but as something unique and highly desirable unto its own.

BOSTON PICKLE FAIR

For three years straight, we have brought over 15 of the best pickle vendors around to the Innovation and Design Building for the Boston Pickle Fair. Taking up 3 parking lots, we brought almost 2K pickle finatics from far and wide to the building for a one day, pickle extravaganza.

THE FARM STAND

In 2019 we launched a new initiative on the property in order to bring more amenity based programs to the tenants of the building. We worked with a local farm to bring farm fresh produce to the tenants of IDB on a weekly basis. To launch the program, we created a social content strategy including a farm visit photoshoot, to provide fresh content all summer long.

WINTER REVELRY HOLIDAY MARKET

Returning for its second year, Winter Revelry was a concept to bring hundreds of visitors to the IDB for a weekend winter market unlike anything else out there. With a focus on high design, local goods, and impeccable taste, we designed, curated, and transformed the space into a huge press and foot traffic driver.