222Mills

Yonkers is a city on New York City's northern edge, along the Hudson River. For decades it sat in Manhattan's shadow. That was changing. Lionsgate was opening a major film studio there, and new development was drawing in creatives priced out of the city.

222 Mills sits inside the old Alexander Smith Carpet Mills, once one of the largest carpet factories in the world. It was being marketed as rental space, with a brewery, an obstacle course gym and a lot of empty floors. No identity, and no reason to visit.

Social Management

Audience Insights

Social Media Design

Cultural Trend Analysis

Brand Identity

Paid Social

Web Content Writing

Content Strategy

Brand Strategy

Verbal Identity

Copywriting

Website Design

Creative Direction

Brand & Digital Strategy Lead
Client: 222 Lake Partners

Around the world, old industrial buildings are becoming places where people spend whole days. Alserkal Avenue in Dubai, Industry City in New York and Ponce City Market in Atlanta all turned warehouses into one destination for work, food, art and play.

Yonkers had the building for it but nothing holding it together. Every tenant spoke for itself. The audiences that mattered most, creatives from the Bronx and families from the suburbs north of New York City, had no reason to make the trip.

The Solution
Stop selling square footage. Sell a place to be. 222 Mills was repositioned as Yonkers' cultural destination: one building where you could work in the morning, grab a beer in the afternoon and dance at a wedding that night.

Every tenant came under one story. Tagline: Work. Play. Thrive. Pillars: Workspaces, Play and Leisure, Community, Culture. Voice: bold, welcoming, grounded. Plain enough for a local, interesting enough for a creative.

The logo takes its shape from the original mill: tall, solid and full of character. Rounded forms nod to nuts and bolts, sharp cuts add movement, and a grid of colored windows shows everything happening inside.

Empty floors became reasons to visit. Mills Social, a games bar. Kitchen@TheMills, a café you can work from. Events at the Mills, a venue for art shows, flea markets, beer gardens and weddings. Each got its own voice inside the same story.

222 Mills went from a rental listing to a destination and became part of Yonkers' creative comeback, with a mention in The New York Times.