2009 National Sales and Marketing Award: Site Point, Baltimore

Photo Credit: Sales Office, Bob Creamer; Exterior, Silo Point

2009 National Sales and Marketing Award - Gold Winner

A Diamond in an Old Grain Silo

Silo Point, Baltimore / Best Attached Community of the Year/Best Urban Sales Office/Best Brochure for a Community Priced over $1 million

Developer: Turner Development Company, Baltimore

Builder: Silo Point II, Baltimore

Architect: Parameter, Irvine, Calif.

Interior designer: Meridian Interiors, Costa Mesa, Calif.

Ad agency: Lyons & Sucher Advertising, Alexandria, Va.

Number of units: 228

Price range of units: $260,000 to over $4 million

Square footage of units: 1,100 to 5,000 square feet

Developer Patrick Turner of Turner Development Group contacted the Archer Daniels Midland Co. repeatedly about his interest in buying an abandoned grain elevator the agricultural giant owned in the Locust Point community of Baltimore. When someone eventually returned Turner's call and heard the proposal, the response was something along the lines of, "You must be crazy or brilliant."

Turns out he was crazy — like a fox. The developer converted that old grain silo into Silo Point, an award-winning, much talked about Baltimore high-rise condo development. And people are buying up units.

"I don't know who would say this is a good market to be selling in," says Jane Lyons, principal of Silo Point's agency, Lyons & Suchor Advertising, "but this has got to be the best selling project in Baltimore, if not a wider geographic area."

What did Turner see that no one else did? The location. Locust Point is a good, safe neighborhood with historical significance — it's said to be the place where Francis Scott Key saw the American Flag during the War of 1812, a moment that inspired him to write the Star Spangled Banner. Because it's on a peninsula of ports, there are great water views. And because of zoning, these views will remain intact.

"The residential units [at Silo Point] don't start until the third floor," explains Lyons. "The bottom level is going to be retail. Because of the height restrictions in the neighborhood, your views will never be blocked, even if you live on the third floor."

The sales center, which also won gold, is a 4,500-square-foot space with almost 30-foot high ceilings. Pipes and ducts are exposed, and key marketing messages are stenciled onto the raw concrete columns. The art gallery/museum atmosphere has a series of stations that convey information about Silo in digestible pieces and a variety of media including videos, sculptural displays, interactive kiosks and a 9-foot scale model of the building lit from the inside.

Silo's brochure even won gold, and several other marketing pieces won silvers.

"What they did with it is just amazing," said one Nationals judge of the Silo Point program. "They took advantage of its location; they created great interior spaces, great interior design, great exterior architecture and great signage. The marketing of it was fabulous."

"We have a lot of news stories, a lot of press and buzz about this project," says Lyons. "It's a skyline maker. It's become an iconic building on the horizon."