Beatrice Mercantile: Designing a Digital Destination
How a unified, multi-tenant digital hub transformed a historic renovated building into a cohesive local landmark, driving foot traffic to its individual businesses.
Project overview
Role: Lead UI/UX & Brand Designer
Core Focus: Multi-Tenant Information Architecture, Cohesive Brand Extension, Responsive Web Design, Local SEO & Discovery
The Goal: Position the renovated Beatrice Mercantile Building as a single "experience destination" while giving its diverse internal businesses their own distinct presence.
The Multi-Tenant Experience Gap
When historic brick-and-mortar spaces are renovated into multi-business hubs—featuring dining, shopping, breweries, and historical spaces—they face a unique digital hurdle.
If every individual business operates its own disconnected website, the consumer loses the sense of "destination." Visitors don't realize they can grab a craft beer, shop at a boutique, and learn about local history all under one roof. Conversely, a single, boring "directory" website fails to capture the unique energy, branding, and offerings of individual spots like Stone Hollow Brewery.
The challenge was to design a digital umbrella that:
Creates a Cohesive Brand Story: Unifies the historic 19th-century brick-and-mortar building under a premium visual identity.
Balances Tenant Autonomy: Gives individual businesses within the building the spotlight they deserve without fracturing the overall site navigation.
Drives Real-World Foot Traffic: Makes discovery effortless for weekend travelers and local patrons looking for a complete afternoon experience.
The Visual Identity: Warm Heritage
The aesthetic for the digital experience was pulled directly from the physical building itself. Built in the late 19th century, the Mercantile Building boasts gorgeous exposed red brick, heavy timbers, and polished brass fixtures.
I refreshed the brand’s visual system to pay homage to this physical heritage:
A Warm, Historic Palette: Utilizing deep brick reds, rich charcoal grays, and warm, historic gold accents to immediately evoke the cozy, premium feeling of the physical space.
Editorial Typography: Pairing elegant serif headings (nodding to the building’s historical roots) with clean, modern sans-serif body text for flawless readability across screens.
The Interactive "Co-Op" Directory
To help users plan their visit, I designed a streamlined, experience-first directory. Instead of a flat list of business names, the interface is structured around user intent: Sip, Dine, Shop, and Explore.
This intentional layout guides visitors through the entire ecosystem, subtly cross-promoting the different businesses. A user coming purely to check out the brewery is instantly introduced to the boutique shops and historic exhibits, increasing the average dwell time and spend per visitor.
The Impact
By translating the physical beauty of the building into a strategic digital portal, the Beatrice Mercantile project successfully established the venue as a regional tourism hub:
Unified Brand Authority: The building now presents a united, premium digital presence, drastically increasing its appeal for events, regional travelers, and community gatherings.
Frictionless Tenant Discovery: Visitors seeking one specific tenant are naturally introduced to the entire ecosystem, driving organic cross-traffic and collaborative business growth for all tenants.
A Scalable Digital Framework: The modular directory design allows the building owners to easily update, swap, or add new tenants in the future without requiring a complete website redesign.