GREENSBORO — If Publix Super Markets Inc. is known for its thorough and deliberate customer service, that attention to detail made it downright slow for "Project Sky" to come in for a landing.

The company took 30 months to move the project from first meetings with Greensboro officials to Gov. Roy Cooper's announcement Wednesday that Publix will hire up to 1,000 people and invest $300 million in phase one of a warehouse and distribution center east of Greensboro.

"Project Sky," as local economic developers came to know the secret effort, started when a consultant for the Lakeland, Fla.-based company made contact with state officials about trying to find a place with lots of land and easy access to an interstate.

"Publix is a very detailed and deliberate company so it wasn’t a huge surprise for us because they were looking for the perfect site," said David Ramsey, executive vice president for economic development for the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce.

By early 2018, two years after that first contact, Greensboro developer Roy Carroll was talking about the possibility that Publix could build its 10th distribution center on about 350 acres he owns or controls near the intersection of Birch Creek Road and U.S. 70 east of Greensboro.