Larken Associates‘ Hillsborough Village Center, a mixed-use project located at 650 U.S. Highway 206 in Hillsborough, is 100% preleased, according to a Tuesday morning announcement. The property began welcoming its first residents earlier in November.
Slated for full completion later this fall, the community will feature a clubhouse and nine multifamily buildings comprised of 191 luxury one- and two-bedroom units, as well as three mixed-use buildings with elevatored apartments and 28,000 square feet of ground-level retail.
The full preleasing of the property ahead of its completion is the latest success story for Larken Living, Larken Associates’ residential division.
“Although the past year has presented significant challenges in how we lease residential spaces, we take pride in our ability to consistently find innovative solutions to any obstacles thrown our way,” said Jessica Heckman, director of residential asset management at Larken Associates. “While the Hillsborough project had additional hurdles to clear, I am deeply proud of the problem-solving abilities and collaborative approach our team leveraged to bring this community to 100% leased.”
Larken Living’s proactive strategy implemented detailed animated videos and renderings of Hillsborough Village Center’s units and amenities and leveraged traditional and social media platforms to drive engagement and leasing activity within the community. Beginning in May 2020, the Larken Living team launched a preliminary website for the property as the community celebrated its groundbreaking. The website ensured any leads created from media stories covering the milestone would be captured and kept updated throughout the progress of the project.
Additionally, Larken Living created individual Instagram, Facebook and Google My Business pages for the property to establish a robust digital presence designed to interact with prospects across platforms in a meaningful way. Over the course of the project, these pages continually announced various milestones, events and completion schedules as well as construction photos and tours of the in-progress property. The team further enhanced this web and social presence through additional digital advertising and comprehensive email marketing campaigns.
Building upon the significant interest generated by these tactics, Larken Associates began accepting reservations in January 2021, well ahead of the project’s scheduled completion date. The reservation system provided the company with a qualified list of interested leads to facilitate an efficient lease-up process when pre-leasing officially opened in April. The reservation system also helped to create a sense of urgency as prospective residents could be alerted to the increasing number of prospective residents interested in the community. Shortly after launching its reservation list, advertising on ILS apartment sites began even though the property was still eight months away from initial occupancy. Larken Living then ensured all e-leads would receive early access to floorplans, model renderings, interactive clubhouse tours and 3D community drive-thru-drone tours as they became available.
Driven by this multifaceted approach to digital leasing and marketing paired with the company’s well-established reputation for high-quality multifamily construction and amenity-rich communities, the Larken Living team was able to generate significant interest in Hillsborough Village Center.
