With A Fresh Look Ahead, It’s Time To Rediscover Emerald Heights
February 19, 2021A Glimpse Of What’s In Store As Our Community Continues To Evolve
Each start of a new year brings an opportunity to take stock of where we are and where we want to go. That’s true for individuals and for groups—like our community at Emerald Heights. This year, Emerald Heights will be celebrating the 29th anniversary of when the first residents moved into our community. To meet the wants and needs of residents over the years, we’ve updated, expanded, and freshened up various areas of the community, as well as the services and amenities we offer. Now, it’s time to go further. It’s time to rediscover Emerald Heights.
We’re excited to share with you what we have planned for the next year or so, and we invite you to keep tabs on this latest phase of our evolution by following us on Facebook.
Changes With A Purpose
If you take a look at the About Us page on our website, you’ll see that “change” is listed as one of our values, along with integrity, stewardship, empowerment, faith, and choice. But we don’t advocate for change merely for the sake of making or doing something different. The changes we undertake are purely for improvement and must in some way fulfill our mission—which, naturally, focuses on creating and maintaining a caring community where residents can thrive, now and in the future.
In Harmony With Our Scenic Surroundings
The most noticeable changes we’ll be making to our campus will be updating the building exteriors throughout to reflect a “Northwest Modern” look, complete with a new, richer color palette and textured façades. In addition to adding visual appeal and better integrating Emerald Heights with the natural beauty of the landscape around us, the updates will also help to distinguish “neighborhoods” within the community, making it easier for visitors and new residents to navigate their way.
“You will see the use of more color,” said Grant Linacre, Emerald Heights’ executive director. “Right now, we are completely monochromatic—all beige with white trim, in a very Midwest, early 1990s design theme. If you look at our newer additions and buildings, they have a much more Pacific Northwest tone, from design through the use of color. We think that bringing in these additional colors will highly reflect that Pacific Northwest feel and complement the other design features of the newer buildings and the buildings we have planned for the campus, as well as the courtyard and the interior refreshes we’ve done over the years.”
“The design reflects comments we’ve received over the years from residents,” he added, noting that the brighter, more vibrant color palette will more appropriately reflect the resident population at Emerald Heights.
Our plans are to get this part of the refresh process underway this spring, with a goal of completing it within approximately a year.
Bringing Our ‘Brand’ Into The Future, As Well
You’ll soon begin to see our image metamorphose in the digital and marketing realms, too. For instance, our logo is evolving to keep pace with the vibrant, new appearance planned for our physical community. Although we’ve retained the “trees and trail” elements of our current logo, which we introduced in 2012, we’ve given them a fresher look to mesh with the Northwest Modern makeover of our campus.
“The pathway, or the trail, in our logo is really paying homage to our residents and their spirit of community and volunteerism,” said Kay Wallin, vice president of marketing and public relations for Emerald Communities. “They’re the ones who built the nature trail around the Emerald Height campus, and that is a key attraction for Emerald Heights. It speaks to our campus. It speaks to community involvement, with the residents having built that nature trail and still maintaining it today.”
New typefaces will emphasize the sleek, contemporary feel of the refreshed logo and will be incorporated into all of our marketing materials going forward, including our new website—which we’ll be launching in the next few weeks.
What Won’t Change
While you can expect to see these changes taking place over the weeks and months ahead, the heart of our community, the very soul of Emerald Heights, will always be the people who live and work here. From the beginning, Emerald Heights has attracted warm, ebullient people who go out of their way to make newcomers feel welcome.
“With a history of nearly three decades, we have built an extremely solid foundation on this campus—financially and culturally—and it’s that foundation that allows us to look at the physical offerings we have, the aesthetics, and say, ‘How do we make this better match who we are and speak to the people who want to come to Emerald Heights?’” Grant said. “The brighter, more vibrant look will reflect who we are as a community and will create a more accurate first impression for those who visit our campus. They’ll get a better sense of how warm and welcoming the people in our community are.”
How You Can Discover More About Emerald Heights
The best way to discover Emerald Heights—the beauty of our campus and its surroundings, and the empowering lifestyle you can enjoy here—is to schedule a personal tour. You can call (866) 553-4576 to set up a visit or send us a message and we’ll call you. If you’d rather see our community without leaving your house, you can always take a virtual tour at your convenience.
Whether you’ve considered moving to Emerald Heights in the past or you’re checking us out for the first time, we hope you’ll come back for another look or two as we make progress on our plans. We’d love to give you one of our genuinely warm welcomes.
