Future-Proofing Property Development: The Case for Brand-First Strategy

Whether reimagining historic resorts, building mixed-use communities from the ground up, or creating regional innovation districts, large-scale multiphase real-estate developments unfold over years, if not decades. Inherently complex, these projects are shaped by evolving market conditions, guided by diverse stakeholder agendas, and dependent on sustained investment and public-private coordination.

Brand strategy provides the definition and alignment large-scale developments need to stay on course as teams shift, markets evolve, and timelines stretch over years. Yet too often, branding is treated as a late-stage marketing initiative, rather than a foundational tool. The cost of this misalignment is significant: more than 35% of construction projects require a major change that impacts the direction, scope, or outcome of the job (Procore, 2018).

Rework and scope creep—common symptoms of unclear vision—account for roughly 15% of total construction costs in the U.S., translating to billions of dollars annually (Neuroject, 2024).

That’s why the most successful developments embed brand thinking from the start—using it to align stakeholders, guide decisions, and maintain long-term coherence. Here are three key reasons to bring brand in early.

3 Reasons to Bring Brand in Early

1. To Set a Strategic North Star
Multiphase developments involve a rotating cast of stakeholders: developers, urban planners, architects, operators, civic leaders, and capital partners. Each operates on different timelines and with distinct perspectives and objectives. Without a shared vision and set of guiding principles, misalignment is common—leading to delays, overages, and diluted final products with underperforming outcomes.

Early brand engagement ensures that all parties are operating from the same strategic framework. The brand defines the development’s unique value proposition, its human-centered impact, and its long-term role in the local community or market. The brand narrative or story is the foundation of this infrastructure that aligns design intent with commercial viability and project success metrics.

Whether working toward zoning approvals, attracting investors, or gaining community support, this strategic clarity streamlines decision-making in line with the project vision. It also reduces the risk of costly late-stage changes that can emerge when foundational questions about purpose, audience, or guiding principles go unanswered.

In the case of Mare Island's development in the center of San Francisco Bay, a clear brand purpose, values, messaging, and visuals were created to galvanize the island from the start. Distilled around three intrinsic truths—nature, industry, and innovation—Mare Island’s foundational branding helped turn the complex redevelopment of an entire island into a purpose-led, placemaking project that brought residents, businesses, visitors, and investors together on common ground.

2. To Inform Integrated Design and Development
Design is not a singular act or stage; it’s an ecosystem of disciplines that includes architecture, interiors, brand expression, and experiential follow-through. Without a unifying brand strategy, each team risks interpreting the project through its own lens, producing fragmented and diluted outcomes.

A clear brand platform—defining the brand's purpose, promise, and position along with core values, attributes, and distinctions—provides the connective tissue that ensures design cohesion. It drives both high-level spatial planning (e.g., how amenity spaces are prioritized and developed) and micro-level experience decisions (e.g., customer journey touchpoints). It’s the informed, purpose-driven foundation that separates your brand from the rest. In practice, we’ve seen projects benefit directly from this approach.

Oglebay Park Resort, a longstanding and beloved icon in West Virginia, needed a comprehensive strategy to elevate its stature from local treasure to national destination. FINE brought brand foundation and experience design together to guide Oglebay’s multi-year evolution, clarifying the market opportunity and aligning diverse stakeholders around a transformative property-wide placemaking vision, including experience-driven sub-brands, architectural updates, and the development of a wildly new way to stay.

3. To Enable Scalable, Phased Rollouts Without Fragmentation
Phased rollouts are a defining and often necessary feature of large real-estate and property development projects. Yet they often create operational and brand inconsistencies as new partners enter the process, collaborators leave or shift focus, and market context evolves over time.

Modular branding—established early and built to adapt—prevents this fragmentation. This process provides the foundational tools and frameworks necessary to maintain brand integrity from phase to phase, even when those phases are separated by years, changing teams, or shifts in use.

With the core of the brand in place, the next step in the modular branding process is defining the brand architecture, a particularly critical exercise for developments with property tiers or sub-brands. As a major placemaking component, the brand architecture defines how each sub-brand, new building, energy center, and experience relates to and interacts with the parent brand and with one another. The outcome is a strategic blueprint built for brand evolution—protecting against the unpredictability inherent to phased roll-outs.

When the Hotel del Coronado—a National Historic Landmark and Southern California icon—underwent its biggest renovation since its construction in 1888, FINE helped The Del evolve from a historic hotel into a full lifestyle and destination brand, celebrating its storied past while attracting the next generation of guests. After clarifying audience targets, an extensive placemaking strategy was developed to expand social centers across the campus and create an ecosystem of distinct neighborhoods with stay experiences thoughtfully tailored to specific mindsets. Diverse lodging helped The Del expand its reach and grow market share. And while this brand evolution—with all of its placemaking components—was activated across many years, stages, and leaders, its strong foundation kept the underlying intent intact through the final renovation.

The Lasting Impact of Early Branding
Embedded brand thinking equips development teams with a shared vision, a decision-making framework, and a compelling narrative that drives momentum and unlocks value across every phase of projects. Treated as a foundational yet fluid asset rather than an end-stage deliverable, property branding helps real-estate projects stay the course through changing conditions, partners, and timelines.

From the partnerships noted above to our work with Slabtown Square , Silverado Resort, and more, early and sustained brand stewardship helps to ensure multiphase development projects are not only built, but believed in from the start.