Baystone Development’s Legacy Farms, a single-family neighborhood in Hopkinton, MA, was facing resistance from residents over an amendment to the master plan. The amendment was defeated in the first town vote. Nickerson was brought in to help the initiative to drive the vote at the next town meeting by implementing an integrated marketing campaign. Support more than doubled, winning approval from the town.
Baystone Development wanted to amend their master plan on the 730-acre project of single-family homes, townhouses, and condominiums, due to evolving marketing conditions. They needed two-third’s majority yes vote from the town, but lost the first round of voting. With just six weeks until the final vote, Nickerson designed a multi-faceted campaign to swiftly gain the necessary support of the residents.
A Crisis Management team was assembled and collaborated with Baystone leadership to recognize specific issues the residents had with the amendment in order to address public concerns. The Public Relations team strategically coordinated press outreach, including local cable television appearances, local online and print publications, and also created the verbiage for the Frequently Asked Questions page. This FAQ page was designed by the Creative team, along with grassroots signage, and an in-depth infographic to easily inform the public of the benefits of this project. This information was pushed out by the Social team as well, to make these pieces easily sharable on social platforms.
To ensure success of this campaign, all team members took part in a boots on the ground effort by attending town meetings, neighborhood canvassing, and community outreach. To get a more in depth look at this project, visit the Case Studies<link> page.
Baystone Development is a regional leader in real estate development and investment. Baystone’s principals have over 75 combined years of industry experience. Collectively, they have invested, developed and/or permitted over 2 million square feet of commercial space including over 3,500 dwellings with an aggregate total value in excess of $800 million. The team is known for some of the most successful development projects in New England including Cronin’s Landing, Longview Place and Children’s Hospital Boston, all of which have been the subject of Harvard Graduate School of Design case studies.
Baystone’s greatest strength is the quality and experience of their team, combining innovative thinking and expert analysis with creative deal structuring and problem-solving, all of which are applied to a wide range of real estate opportunities. For more information, go to baystonedevelopment.com
