Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
AT&T’s new Lauderdale store focuses on entertainment
AT&T on Friday opened what it has billed as an “entertainment store” in downtown Fort Lauderdale, with a new design that focuses on how consumers use their mobile phones.
The 5,500-square-foot, standalone store at 530 N. Federal Highway “showcases wireless, video and broadband working together,” said Cristy Swink, vice president and general manager for AT&T Florida.
There are about 40 entertainment-focused AT&T stores around the country, but this is the first in Florida, said Kelly Starling, spokeswoman for AT&T in South Florida.
The design is mostly what’s different about this AT&T store, Starling said. Products include smartphones, tablets, satellite service DirecTV, virtual reality glasses, tablets and smartwatches. Those products are available in any AT&T store, but in this store “the entertainment focus is more visible,” she said.
The new store also provides “comfortable” areas that include high tabletops and chairs and couches where an AT&T representative can “sit down with the customers and work with them side by side vs. a countertop,” Starling said.
The new location, built by AT&T, has a “large audience of business and residential customers,” she said. “The Miami-Fort Lauderdale market is a big, important market for AT&T.”
The store’s hours of operation are: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.