The Streets at Southpoint • Durham, North Carolina

Grand Opening Public Relations

Securing positive public relations through the media was critical to the success of the project’s grand opening, as Urban was introducing a brand new product and concept to the marketplace – a 1.1 million square foot enclosed mall, combined with a 200,000 square foot outdoor streetscape, featuring shops, restaurants and a 16-screen cinema. At the outset, our goals were lofty:

• Secure 20 million impressions through positive news articles;
• Communicate the complexity of an indoor-outdoor shopping environment;
• Develop and nurture positive press relations for long-term benefits; and
• Educate the news media on guidelines to Southpoint’s media access policies.

Overview
While Southpoint was located in the city of Durham, the project could not survive on shoppers coming from just one city. Urban worked closely with media outlets in the contiguous cities of Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Cary to attract shoppers to the project through comprehensive media coverage. Beginning eight months prior to grand opening, story ideas were given to the media in a controlled manner to build momentum, intrigue and excitement. Methods used to attract media attention varied from full press conferences to general news release distribution to photo advisories to one-on-one interviews with key executives. Due to the project’s many unique features and the amount of local media attention, the project received media interest from the entire state of North Carolina.

Results
The Streets at Southpoint opened March 8, 2002, hosting 25 news crews and welcoming 130,000 shoppers on grand opening day.

• Generated over 72 million impressions;
• Achieved $1.1 million in value added media publicity;
• Garnered statewide media from Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greensboro and Fayetteville; and
• Road-blocked two newscast time periods on grand opening day.