Uptown
Led marketing communications for Bourn Companies' $500M+ redevelopment of Tucson's former Foothills Mall — a 2 million square foot urban village — across email, social, PR, brand strategy, and internal alignment.
Client:
Uptown (Bourn Companies)
Category:
Brand Strategy, Marketing Communications, PR
My Role:
Marketing Lead
The Problem
Selling a place that doesn't exist yet.
Uptown is a $500M+ redevelopment of the former Foothills Mall- 2 million square feet of housing, hotels, retail, dining, and public space rebuilt as Tucson's first high-density urban village outside of Downtown. The scale was unprecedented for the market. The audience was every Tucsonan who'd ever known the old mall, every retailer evaluating where to lease, every hotel partner weighing a flag, every resident who might one day live there.
Selling a vision this big means keeping multiple audiences- public, press, partners, internal teams- moving in the same direction over years, not months.
Approach
One voice across every channel, calibrated for who was listening.
The "Urban Resort Village" concept needed a brand voice that could shift register without losing identity — upbeat for residents, polished for hotel and retail partners, credible for press, clear for internal teams. I led the marketing communications system across five channels:
Brand Strategy. Defined the positioning language that anchored every external touchpoint — the "Urban Resort Village" framing, the upscale, upbeat, always inviting voice, and the audience tiers that let one brand speak to residents, retailers, hospitality partners, and press without diluting any of them.
Email Marketing. Built and managed the Mailchimp program for a list of 10K+ subscribers — milestone announcements, partner reveals (Tempo by Hilton, residential phasing), construction updates, and event invitations. Designed to keep a multi-year project warm for an audience that wouldn't see the doors open for years.
Social Media. Day-to-day social presence across platforms, translating construction milestones, partner announcements, and lifestyle storytelling into content that built anticipation while the site was still under demolition.
PR & Press Comms. Press campaign communications across regional and national outlets — Arizona Daily Star, Inside Tucson Business, BizTUCSON, Real Estate Daily News, and trade press around the Tempo by Hilton, residential, and retail announcements. Managed messaging consistency across every press moment in the development arc.
Internal Comms & Planning. Internal documentation and planning materials that kept the Bourn team, leasing partners, and hospitality collaborators aligned on positioning, messaging, and rollout sequencing. The unsexy work that makes the external work possible.
Impact
A unified brand presence across years of development milestones — from demolition through groundbreaking, residential phasing, and the Tempo by Hilton announcement. A 10K+ subscriber list nurtured through a multi-year build cycle. Press coverage across regional and national outlets that consistently held the "Urban Resort Village" narrative. An internal team aligned on a vision big enough that alignment was the work.
