The 999 Podcast · Episode 10
Building a Destination From Zero
February 19, 2025·49 min·Destinations
Transcript-only for now — the audio is being mastered. Subscribe below to hear it first.
Summary
A solo episode walking through the first principles of designing a destination that has a reason to exist before it has a ribbon to cut.
Key takeaways
- 01Start with the story you want guests to tell on the drive home.
- 02Massing follows meaning. Always.
- 03The hardest line item to budget is conviction.
Also on this narrative
Essay
Why Las Vegas Is Running Out of Narrative
The Strip didn't win because of slot machines. It won because of story. That story is now running on fumes.
Podcast
Ep. 11 — Why Capital Keeps Buying the Wrong Buildings
An institutional allocator and a developer argue, productively, about why so much real estate underwriting still treats narrative as a marketing line item.
Series
Building a Billion-Dollar Destination
An eight-part field manual for designing a place that earns its scale — beginning with story, ending with concrete.