On Names

Revel (rev- UHL). Old French: to revolt, rebel, make merry. 1) To engage in wild or noisy festivities, especially those involving drinking and dancing. 2) To take great or intense delight or satisfaction. Synonyms: carouse, cavort, make merry.

Happy April! Here in Georgia the flowers are blooming though it’s been the coldest April I can remember. The Masters was lovely. The Banks family is in the thick of girls’ lacrosse state playoffs and summer travel softball is around the corner.

Following up on last month’s note on storefronts, perhaps the second most-asked question by our partners and clients might be What’s in a (place) name? Turns out a lot, but also maybe less than you think. The hardest creative part in any commercial endeavor could be the name. Everyone has an opinion. It’s easy to be a critic. If you’re a parent you know just how fraught naming something can be.

When I started Revel I was intent on starting a company that didn’t yet exist: one focused solely on creating great local retail within larger mixed-use projects. So oddly I didn’t want “retail” or “real estate” in the name: we were taking a punk approach and wanted to sound like a garage band crashed a real estate conference. The company was going to be all about restaurants and bars and music and art and entertainment and local tenants and making places great. Voilà: Revel.

Still though it isn’t perfect. Some people mispronounce it re-VEL, like Bolero. I almost named it Revelry and maybe those mispronunciations wouldn’t happen if I had (Easter Egg: that’s why the url is revelRE.co). Sometimes on the phone with yankees we have to clarify that we aren’t “Rebel.”

We often say around here that making destination retail is like making a movie. You start by deciding what movie you want make and who you want to make it for. And like a movie the retail destination you’re creating will need a brand and that brand will begin —but not end— with a name. Having been involved in a few fun projects, with some good names and my share of misses, I’ve learned a little bit about the process. The name is the first step towards a brand, and a good brand is where retail success lives.

First, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Some person or persons won’t like the name you start with. Sometimes the right name is staring you in the face and it’s perfect and you just know it, but honestly that’s the exception.

Don’t take a vote. Or, you can take a vote, but there needs to be a decider with a veto. Nothing great was ever created by committee.

Don’t be afraid of Working Titles. This is Hollywood’s way of giving a project a name until a better one can be found. Give it a name and keep moving while you work it out. You can even put a little “WT” at the end to remind everyone that this is only a starting point. Often times those Working Titles become permanent ones.

If it’s a rehab scheme, don’t change the name, change the vibe. Ponce City Market is a great example. Ponce De Leon Avenue used to be synonymous with runaway teens, AARP strippers and Bicycle Shorts Man. Jamestown could have taken the traditional CRE route and named the building Hipster Yards. Instead they kept Ponce and did the heavy lifting involved to make a real place with a real brand. Now instead of rooms by the hour the area has the city’s priciest office by the SF. I hope Baton Bob is proud.

Gentrification!

Go easy on the innuendos. You won’t meet anyone in commercial real estate more louche than me. I promise the innuendoes don’t offend my sensibilities, they offend me because they’re lazy. Not everything needs to be [___] Slut.

Lay off the puns. As my friend Matt Winn likes to ask, is it against the law to have a pet place name that isn’t a pun? The Bark Rangers at Endless Pawsasbilities are probably lovely people, but we can do better.

Don’t be afraid to coach your tenants. I’ve seen some great operators with great operations with terrible names. If they’re not married to it and you think it could use a little zhuzh, speak up!

A name is more than a street number (office folks I’m looking at you). 1400 Main St is probably a great location in every city in America, but as a brand what does that even mean? It is one less good than 1401 Main? When a tenant says “I work at 1400 Main St” does that prompt knowing nods of approval and envy from those that don’t?

A brand is more than a name. Apartment people now you’re on the hot seat. Making up a name is a fine start but then what? Why are the Azurian apartments different than the Flyvian? Post Properties was a name and a brand, and back in the day it really was dramatically better than the competition.

Side note #1: is anyone from MAA on this distro list? Huge miss dropping the Post Properties name in the merger. Are these Mixed Martial Arts apartments? Is it MAA like “Baah” like sheep?

Side note #2: there are some unremarkable ‘60s vintage apartments in Atlanta that I’ve always wanted to own simply because they are the Chateau Villa Apartments. My Italian and French are a little rusty but I think that translates to Country House Country House Apartments. I’m in.

Don’t get too clever. In 2015 we bought an empty office building to convert to apartments. The guy signing the guarantees insisted on handling the naming, and the branding group came back with The Office because they got fixated on cute tag lines like “Sleep at the Office.” Never mind that when you’re leasing the first-ever apartment conversion in downtown Atlanta it might be nice for the 200,000 people driving past to know it was new apartments and not old Office . . .  I joked it was the only stabilized asset that was also a value add-play just with a rebrand (lo and behold: Altitude).

Neighborhood names are better than property ones. Get other folks in on the act. Districts are having a moment. Krog Street Market is now the Krog District. The Cumulus District is carving out a place between Culver City and West Adams. But be careful: there is nothing worse than calling it a district and having no one show up.

Keep it timeless. Yards is so 2020.

You Can’t Force a Nickname. Stay away from calling the place SoNo or LoMo or WePo or EaGo. Intersections can make for great names (Pike & Rose, 5th & Broad) but either the neighborhood has a vibe and a nickname to go with it, or it doesn’t.

You can’t say excitement without saying SoDoSoPa

Don’t use the King’s English. While we are serious anglophiles here at Revel (more below) that doesn’t mean you can get away with Centres and Shoppes. Unless that’s what they named it in 1965. Then you actually have to keep it.

Have fun with it. What’s the point if we’re not having fun?

Keep it short-ish.

Do your research. There’s nothing worse than when the intern googles it to find something else with the same name that’s looks terrible . . . or infinitely better.

Have a viewpoint. Platform in Culver City says a lot about what they’re trying to achieve. You probably couldn’t get away with Country Mart today but it’s a great name that evokes a real lifestyle. Industry City gets the point across nicely.

At the end of the day though not everything needs a name. Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe and sometimes a building is just a building. If you’re not going to the trouble of building a brand then you probably shouldn’t spend too much time on the name. Maybe it’s just a commodity product (that’s okay) or maybe the area is so cool it gets the job done for you. What’s more punk than that?

What We’re Working On. So much of our work is around real estate brands that we thought we’d add graphic design to the team. Lindsay Ware Studios has been doing our design work for years (our website, all sorts of project marketing materials, the brand work for Crush Pizza and Water Bar and more). A great viewpoint with lots of experience in all sorts of commercial projects and small consumer brands, you’ll be seeing a lot more LWS work here in the future.

What We’re Reading. The Sociology of Business. Ana Angelic might be the best in the retail brand business. Every single note she writes is just absolutely correct. If you want to think more about how your brand or your retailers’ brands fit into a constantly changing world, this is required reading.

Our Favorite Periodical. We do love all things British. Barbour jackets, vintage Land Rovers, James Smith & Sons umbrellas. Our media, too: FT and the Economist and lots and lots of Monocle. The magazine a must-read. Revel’s Erin Mavian even got invited to the Monocle Menu podcast to talk about Grand Central Market. The rest of us are green with envy.

Where We’re Listening To. The fifth Vampire Weekend album finally came out, years since their last one. Are we too old to listen to Vampire Weekend? Nonsense. It’s not just music for Millennial New England English Lit majors anymore. Only God Was Above Us is good stuff. Give it a shot.

Thanks for reading! If you’ve enjoyed this feel free to forward to a friend who might also.

For those new here, I run a retail development and consulting shop in Atlanta. Our mission is to make great retail places, and I write regularly about commercial real estate through that lens.

If you’ve got a mixed-use project that could use some creative thinking — or if just want to spitball a working title for your latest gathering spot— please reach out. I’d love to hear from you.

George Banks