The next innovations in housing will depend on inspired talent—the kind of talent that 2017 MFE Rising Star Benjamin Collins exhibits as senior managing director at Crescent Communities.
In this short video, Collins speaks to the determination and grit it took to capture the award.
That admirable attitude is also what inspired a new design process at Crescent, called Canvas, that’s centered around the customer. Collins pinpoints the Charlotte, N.C.–based firm as unique in its ability to capture customer preferences during the design phase.
Benjamin Watt, director of marketing at Crescent, explains Canvas as a proprietary process designed to arrive at a set of ideas that ultimately can drive the community’s vision. Canvas brings all the project stakeholders—design, planning, construction, development, marketing, operations, and even the community—together to approach a blank canvas. Through the process, these stakeholders develop a shared vision along with principles that serve as the foundation for all aspects of the project.
“This vision influences everything from the design and programming of public spaces to unit mix and finishes,” Watt says. “This collaborative process fosters creative thinking and challenges assumptions, resulting in a unique vision that ultimately helps us deliver a premier product that fulfills our corporate mission of building community and bettering people’s lives. Our belief is that bringing everyone together at the kickoff leads to a better, more consistent product that helps differentiate us in the market and as a brand.”
As Collins explains in the video, collaboration has always been an important part of the development process at Crescent, but it took a lot of trial and error and perseverance to create a formal process like Canvas around it.
Collins is excited about the path before him in multifamily and about the apartment industry in general. He encourages other young leaders to take advantage of the “long [career] runway” multifamily offers.