Growing Up
This is a picture of our new office… well, it’s a picture of plans for our new office. It’s a work in progress, to say the least. In truth, GSP generally is a work in progress. And as of today, we have a lot in progress – new projects, new hires, new office, etc. Here’s what’s up:
NEW HIRE. Last month Sean Alberti joined GSP full-time and we are super excited to have him on the team. Sean will be working with Dave on our retail leasing practice. Sean’s full and proper bio will be up on our new website soon…
NEW WEBSITE. This blog and its predecessor over at cityretail.com have been nice platforms for me to share info re: GSP over the past four years. It’s time for a major upgrade though.
Blanc Agency is helping us with our new look and we’ll launch later this Fall; around the same time as we move into our new office…
NEW OFFICE. Yep, new office. It’s time. We’ll keep a small office in Kendall Square for the foreseeable future but GSP is ready for its own digs outside of the Cambridge Innovation Center. We’ll be moving to the Leather District in Boston. And I promise it’s not going to be a usual office… More details soon.
NEW PROJECTS. A lot of them. And some really exciting ones. I just posted a new page in header above – see: Current Projects – which details the projects we are currently working on. Included therein are full marketing packages and terms sheets. Note the newest additions to the list: (1) 300 Mass Ave and (ii) Canal Park. Both in Cambridge. Both game-changers for their respective neighborhoods. Lots of new consulting and advisory gigs too.
As we get cranking on these newest leasing and advisory projects we have two projects closing out (well, opening) that represent some of our best work to date. In Q4 2012 we began work in parallel on 75 Ames Street in Cambridge and 120 Kingston Street in Boston. Both clients wanted best-in-class chef-driven restaurants that would add value to respective surrounding neighborhoods and buildings. I think we nailed it with both:
1) Ames Street Deli & Study. The Broad Institute wanted something special for the ground floor of its new HQ — A restaurant that is a reflection of the collaboration, experimentation and excellence occurring in the labs and offices upstair. I believe they will get it when Ames Street Deli & Study opens. Owned and operated by the incredibly dynamic husband/wife team of Tse Wei Lim and Diana Kudayarova (owners of Journeyman and Backbar in Union Square, Somerville) Deli & Study will open in November. I can’t wait. Proper AM coffee and PM cocktails. Sandwiches to tasting menus. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. More details here: http://boston.eater.com/tags/the-ames-street-deli
2) Townsman. We really like working with Chef-operators and husband/wife teams. Family businesses are amazing. Case in point above… and with EVOO, FireBrand Saints, Giulia, etc. Townsman is Matt & Kate Jennings. They kickass. And they have been kicking ass for over a decade at Farmstead in Providence, RI. We will now get them in Boston. And what I suspect we’ll get is what our client, Forest City and Hudson Group NA, wanted — a sincere, responsible, forward-thinking, approachable and exceptional restaurant on Boston’s Greenway. I expect that Townsman will immediately become one of the most talked about restaurants in Boston within a few months of opening. I mean, it sort of already is: http://boston.eater.com/tags/townsman
These two restaurants, our new website, office, Sean and our newest projects are all reflections of who we are, our values/philosophy, how we work and who we will be (and want to be) as a biz moving into 2015 and beyond. And as the leader of GSP I take this stuff really, really seriously. As GSP grows beyond Kendall Square, beyond this blog, and beyond just Dave and I, I hope to find new ways of sharing our work with you. And I hope that as our team grows to include Gustavo, Sean, Carrie, Noam, Michael and others our voice and identity will be shared and crafted by us all. So yeah, we are growing and we are, as I noted above, growing up. You may feel otherwise when you see our new office though… But hey, why do all this work if we can’t have a little fun.
