What is beauty and why is it important to a real estate developer?

For a real estate development, the aesthetic value of your property – its overall beauty – is a key indicator of the financial success of your project.

Beauty is defined as a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.

Ian Gillespie, founder of the real estate development company Westbank, has explained, “All too often beauty is mistaken, and therefore diminished, as a decorative frill, a final touch or a camouflage of what is really at work underneath.”

Developers often make design errors that severely impact the success of their projects when they treat beauty as a merely superficial decoration. Without acknowledging the importance of beautiful spaces, they miss out on the advantages beauty provides for a development project.

The Advantages of Beautiful Outdoor Spaces

Streetscape amenities and urban rooftop design are two elements that are typically included in an urban real estate development. Because so few properties truly capitalize on them, these locations are where increased beauty can have the greatest impact. Along with the architectural form and facade, outdoor spaces comprise the first impression of your property to potential tenants and investors.

They are make it or break it spaces.

In an urban environment, nothing shines more than a beautifully crafted outdoor living space. A myriad of market trends are pushing outdoor amenity spaces to unprecedented prominence in the minds of your future tenants and investors. 

Market Trends Call for Beautiful Urban Rooftop Design

Smaller Units

Smaller units and larger common spaces are becoming more popular in urban locations. Every growing urban region in the country is struggling with the issue of affordable housing. The most effective way to offer affordability in a rapidly growing city is to increase density.

Emphasis on Common Areas

A dense and expensive city still has to be livable. Beautiful common areas, including streetscape and rooftop amenity spaces, are a must-have for any new construction in a downtown area.

Access and Convenience

People will always have the need to socialize and experience nature. But access to a healthy city life is becoming more expensive. Young, working professionals are looking for locations that provide the best opportunities for relatively low cost. They need less expensive access to the convenient downtown urban lifestyle and beautiful outdoor spaces.

Resort Style Amenities

Shared amenity areas, even more than private units, are becoming the primary reason tenants choose to move to a particular property. Developments are no longer competing solely based on location, rent, and unit floor plans. Apartments and condos with luxury, resort style amenities are the new urban standard of living.

Migration and Travel

The world is getting smaller. Migration and travel bring people to new places with higher expectations for urban living. Developers must look further than their local market for outdoor amenity space comparables. The world is full of outstanding outdoor spaces. Your challenge as a developer is to bring something new and exciting to your part of the world.

Community Identity

Urban residents across the country are placing higher value on community identity and placemaking. In order to stand out among the competition, each development needs to be distinct. With the structural and budget constraints on architecture however, so many residential buildings look the same. Outdoor spaces provide the most cost effective way to add uniqueness and enhanced aesthetic quality to your urban developments.

Don’t Neglect the Beauty of Outdoor Space

A savvy developer will respond to these market conditions by choosing not to neglect the beauty of outdoor space. They will seek to capture a feeling and provide a unique and beautiful experience.

Within a dense urban city, outdoor space can have an inherent beauty. Simply providing visual access to nature has impact. However, solely providing the space is not enough. It has to be more aesthetically appealing than your competition in order to be a draw for prospective tenants. 

The 19th-century French writer Stendhal asserted, “Beauty is the promise of happiness.” Your future tenants will associate their future happiness with the amount of beauty they find in your outdoor amenity spaces. Stay committed to the details that make your project distinct and attractive. This way you will successfully communicate to future tenants that your project should be their future home.