How Do You Put 40 Years of a Family Business Online?
Old companies have a specific website problem. They have decades of good work. Their site doesn’t show any of it.
That was us. In March 2025 we relaunched lewisretailcenters.com. Here’s what was broken, what we changed, and what I’d tell anyone doing the same.
What was wrong
The old site had drifted. Four problems stood out:
- It didn’t look like the parent company. Lewis Retail Centers is part of the Lewis Group of Companies. The site had lost its connection to that brand.
- Our history was buried. We have 40+ years of family-run development. You couldn’t tell from the site.
- Our difference wasn’t clear. Being a family business changes how we work with tenants and cities. The site never said so.
- Key information was hidden. Property details were hard to find.
None of these are design problems on their own. They’re story problems. The site wasn’t telling people who we are.
Who did what
We split the work between two partners.
Dean&Co. handled brand and design. They started from our brand guidelines. Their job was to keep the tie to the parent company while giving retail its own identity.
The developers at Wonderful built it. Their job was to make it easy to use and easy for us to manage.
My job was to own the story.
The balance we had to strike
The hardest part was the parent brand. Go too close and retail disappears into the corporate site. Go too far and you lose 40 years of credibility.
We landed in the middle. Same brand family. Clearly its own business.
What I’d tell anyone relaunching an established brand
Start with the story, not the design. Write down what people should believe after visiting. Then design for that.
Don’t hide your history. Use it. Longevity is proof. Put it where people see it.
Say what makes you different in plain words. “Family-run” means nothing until you say how it changes the experience.
Make the important stuff easy to find. If people come for property details, don’t make them dig.
Pick partners for their lane. A brand agency and a dev team are different skills. Let each do what they’re best at.
Where it went next
A website isn’t finished at launch. In 2026 we added an AI assistant that answers questions about our properties around the clock and captures leasing leads. The relaunch gave us a foundation solid enough to build on.
The site now shows where we’ve been for the past 40 years. More importantly, it’s built for the next 40.
