New names aid corporate branding but erode sense of place

Development

New names aid corporate branding but erode sense of place

by Dan Reed • August 16, 2012 12:47 pm

After 45 years, Georgian Towers is no more. A new owner has renamed the downtown Silver Spring complex "The Point at Silver Spring." While a new name might give the troubled complex a fresh start, it ignores the emotional and social value of an established name.

Welcome to The Point at Silver Spring. Photo by Matt Johnson.

New owner Pantzer Properties recently bought the 1960's-era apartment buildings at Georgia Avenue and Spring Street out of receivership. Despite a dramatic transformation in recent years, the complex has been plagued by financial troubles. In 2008, previous owner Stellar Management renamed it The Georgian and undertook a multi-million dollar renovation, culminating in a swanky rooftop party with models, a DJ, and a woman-turned-sushi bar.

However, the celebration didn't last long. Stellar took out loans to pay for the improvements, but couldn't generate enough income to cover them. As a result, they defaulted on their loans and declared bankruptcy.

Despite dramatic rent increases, tenants claimed that Stellar basically stopped running the building. Renovations stopped while the building fell victim to vandalism, thefts and break-ins. According to the Washington Business Journal, Pantzer acquired the complex for just $168 million, nearly $50 million less than what Stellar owed on it.

Apartment complex owners often like renaming their properties, whether to reboot a tarnished reputation or maintain a consistent brand. Most of Pantzer's properties are called "The Point," such as the Point in Alexandria and the Point in Germantown. (It's probably a coincidence that "The Point" was a former name of The Enclave, an apartment complex in White Oak that changed names several times and also received a makeover by Stellar.)

At the same time, people get accustomed to using a certain name and it becomes a part of the community. If you've lived in the DC area for a while, you may have visited a Chevy Chase Bank, went Christmas shopping at Hecht's, hung out at Wheaton Plaza or went to Montgomery General Hospital when you're sick. Today, those names are gone, replaced by titles that may create a unified corporate brand but erode our sense of place.

Left: The Georgian in 2008. Right: 1980's-era Georgian Towers logo, still visible in 2008.

AvalonBay, one of the nation's biggest rental companies, has an aggressive branding strategy, often renaming properties to craft a specific image or appeal to certain markets. Yet as their own marketing people admit, "An individual property can be outdated or sold, but a brand lives on."

I grew up in Georgian Towers, and I often meet people online and in real life who lived there or knew someone who lived there at some point in the past four decades. Even if we didn't live there at the same time, we have a shared, positive emotional connection about this place. It doesn't matter that the building was called Georgian Towers, but the meaning, or brand, attached to the name does. There might be value in that, rather than trying to wipe the slate clean every time a new owner comes in.

Georgian Towers as a name hasn't existed for at least 5 years, but I still hear people calling it that, which makes me wonder if "The Point at Silver Spring" will stick. That said, I hear people refer to "Wheaton Mall" a lot, which tells me that Westfield's attempt at renaming it "Westfield Shoppingtown Wheaton" or "Westfield Wheaton" failed, but still managed to erase the old name.

After years of instability, the tenants of The Point at Silver Spring are getting new management and a better, safer place to live. That's more important than any nostalgia I or anyone else feels for our old home. At the same time, it would be nice if Pantzer gave their new property a name that acknowledged its past. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind "The Point at Georgian Towers."

24 comments

Tags: corporate branding, Maryland, Montgomery, Silver Spring

Old buildings are the key to affordability (Jan 19, 2012)
Montgomery County, land of few names (Aug 27, 2009)
Preservation shouldn't stop future history at Falkland Chase (Feb 11, 2010)
Strip malls won't help Wheaton redevelopment (Aug 5, 2010)
How Silver Spring Park could be a good neighbor (Feb 23, 2010)

A planner and architect by training, Dan Reed is interested in suburban retrofits. Dan works for the Friends of White Flint, writes his own blog, Just Up the Pike, and serves as the Land Use Chair for the Action Committee for Transit. Dan lives in Silver Spring.

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Some of the most blatant examples of corporate blanding (har-har) are in Tysons, where many of the street names are either websites or companies. Good for branding, but they look ridiculous.

by NYCArchibuff on Aug 16, 2012 2:23 pm • link • report

I get tired of all the duplicate naming.

X Point, Olde X, X Heights, Shoppes at X

And worse, those are often spilling over in neighboring neighborhoods, which blurs the edges between well-defined areas.

by Jasper on Aug 16, 2012 2:54 pm • link • report

Most of these apartment complexes that change names frequently also have terrible reputations. I think part of the motivation in changing a place's name is the hope that potential renters won't find anything about it on www.apartmentratings.com, or at least they might associate a new name with new management and give the place a shot.

Anyway, all I know is that when I was apartment hunting two years ago, a quick visit to apartmentratings.com told me all I needed to know about The Georgian/Georgian Towers and I never even considered living there.

by silver springer on Aug 16, 2012 3:08 pm • link • report

Reminds me of the address change.

http://www.silverspringsingular.com/2012/08/homicide-house-has-its-history-erased.html

by David J on Aug 16, 2012 3:12 pm • link • report

Corporate branding is even worse when you have "The Solaire @ Silver Spring" as the name of that new tower near the metro station, and "The Solaire @ Wheaton" breaking ground as a 5 story building 1 block south of the Wheaton Metro. That's a joke to me!

by Gull on Aug 16, 2012 3:50 pm • link • report

I think baseball stadium naming deals sap the soul of fans.

In San Francisco, Candlestick Park gave way to 3COM Stadium. Since the Giants move to the new ballpark, it's been called Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park and now AT&T Park.

From 1883 to 1957, where the Giants played was called the Polo Grounds, and that was three different sets of turf.

By the way, it's nice to see curmudgeon attitudes among the young. I always thought it was an older folk thing! (Me...)

by Jay Roberts on Aug 16, 2012 4:04 pm • link • report

...and, if you ever find a native New Yorker who calls 6th Avenue "Avenue of the Americas", you've got a candidate for Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not.

by MattF on Aug 16, 2012 5:11 pm • link • report

"I think baseball stadium naming deals sap the soul of fans. "

Like Wrigley Field?

by Kolohe on Aug 16, 2012 5:16 pm • link • report

@Jay Roberts: I agree with you that corporate names for baseball stadiums, and other sports venues for that matter, are annoying. Not to mention confusing when they keep changing sponsors. But Kolohe makes a good point - Wrigley Field shows that if a corporate name sticks around long enough, it can become iconic.
For that matter, the example you give from New York is interesting - I wonder how many younger people would assume that The Polo Grounds was sponsored by Ralph Lauren? :-)

by Mike on Aug 16, 2012 5:54 pm • link • report

I think there are differences in how you hear and perceive the name if it's just a person's name. Technically Wrigley Field (and the various Busch Stadiums) were named after people, not the companies.

by MLD on Aug 16, 2012 6:04 pm • link • report

I live in Wardman Courts. You never heard of it. But once I describe it as the old Clifton Terraces, you wonder if I should have my head examined. At least you do if you have been around DC for a couple of decades. The redeveloper thought it would be clever to honor Harry Wardman, the first developer. At the same time the troubled Clifton Terraces name would RIP. Frankly, I'm rather proud to have lived here for almost a decade now .... but I wish it was still Clifton Terraces.

by tour guide on Aug 16, 2012 6:17 pm • link • report

I can't think of any examples of roads that were renamed, NYCArchibuff.

I'm not sure what the Westfield Group accomplished with the rebranding of their malls internationally. I'm not sure how many people walk into a mall and think, "it would be great if someone bought my mall. This would be a great group to go with" because they walk into a Westfield in Australia.

by selxic on Aug 16, 2012 6:55 pm • link • report

The Denver Post refused to call the Broncos stadium "invesco " for several years and many people still call it "Mile High Stadium". Feel free to tell tha cabbie to take you to National Airport. Do landoangers really have all the rights or do they share those rights with speakers who decide whether to use the new name?

by Jim Titus on Aug 16, 2012 9:06 pm • link • report

"In San Francisco, Candlestick Park gave way to 3COM Stadium. Since the Giants move to the new ballpark, it's been called Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park and now AT&T Park."

Yeah, that's been kind of silly, but let's not forget about Dan's good qualifying point at the end of the article...

"After years of instability, the tenants of The Point at Silver Spring are getting new management and a better, safer place to live. That's more important than any nostalgia I or anyone else feels for our old home."

AT&T Park is one of the best in baseball - with a team inside to match its excellence. So not many San Franciscans care about the name. And one reason the name has been so corporate is down to the fact that it was almost 100% privately financed. I think most taxpayers would take that over a nicely named windswept eyesore of a park.

by Kev29 on Aug 16, 2012 11:09 pm • link • report

@selxic The august and tastefully named Sen. Octavius Bacon objected that the avenue named for his home state of Georgia, "the Empire of the South," was a muddy mess that did not do, and began to lobby for it to be renamed Potomac Avenue, freeing the good name of Georgia Avenue for a more fitting right-of-way. In 1908, Bacon succeeded. Bacon did not mention it that I know of, but perhaps he also harbored deep down a resentment that under the old naming system, Georgia Avenue ended at Reservation 13, even then a dumping ground and home to the poor house and jail, which could be a sensitive topic for some sons and daughters of Georgia.

http://www.thehillishome.com/2010/01/lost-capitol-hill-georgia-ave-se/

by Trulee Pist on Aug 17, 2012 1:41 am • link • report

Potomac Avenue isn't the same as AT&T Boulevard.

by selxic on Aug 17, 2012 7:25 am • link • report

It's sad when this stuff hist home. OTOH, downtown Silver Spring probably vies with Rosslyn for most ugly, poorly thought out urban renewal relics from the last 50 years. All the renaming in the world won't compensate for that. The dull architecture, the long blocks with nothing much at street level and the lack of integration among different areas need to be overcome for the area to be really competitive with other urban suburbs.

by Rich on Aug 17, 2012 10:34 am • link • report

I'm not sure why this is newsworthy or even worthy of this specifically DC-area-themed blog.

I think people overly obsess over the naming situation. Names are just names and the only reason they become identifiable and/or have nostalgia for folks, is because they've been around for a while.

But life changes, things change, and well, so do the names of buildings and places. I think as mature adults we need to just, well, get over it.

This idea that it somehow erodes the "feeling of place" to me, is really quite silly.

The DMV area receives thousands of new residents that move here every day from around the World. To them, these names that mean so much to us, have absolutely 0 meaning for the most part, and well, they will probably be part of the movement to change them.

Whether it's real estate developers, or donors who give tons of money, or city government that change the names around, what does it matter?

I think we all need to get over it and just accept that changes happen and well, adapt accordingly...

These are really not major concerns, in my book.

by LuvDusty on Aug 17, 2012 10:52 am • link • report

Clearly this matters to you if you were willing to take the time to write a long comment about it.

by dan reed! on Aug 17, 2012 10:54 am • link • report

Apartment buildings are one thing, but I want People's Drugs back!
(And for some reason, I still call the arena MCI Center because I honestly can't remember the curent name... I know it was also Verizon at one point - is it still that now?)

by Anon202 on Aug 17, 2012 11:12 am • link • report

Commenting on a topic isn't the same as agreeing with the topic.

by selxic on Aug 17, 2012 12:29 pm • link • report

It's still Verizon, Anon202. I normally call it the Phonebooth.

by selxic on Aug 17, 2012 6:35 pm • link • report

Clearly this matters to you if you were willing to take the time to write a long comment about it.

Thanks Dan. Let me make myself more clear--I just think it's one of those "1st World Problems" as my friend says...it seems to me, a very very minor issue of very little true importance considering some of the other major issues that GGW covers.

And while I don't begrudge your writing about it--much--I do begrudge the folks that think it somehow is a major concern.

by LuvDusty on Aug 20, 2012 9:56 am • link • report

There is always tension between stasis and change. Not everyone will ever be happy with either, but I guess we have to learn that sometimes the things that are nostalgic to us will only continue to live on in our memories. It's the price of progress.

by Alan on Aug 20, 2012 1:55 pm • link • report