Mall of Georgia is a complete and total unmitigated disaster (Alpharetta: purchase, costs)

[ATLTJL]

I typically avoid the Mall of Georgia area at all costs because of how horribly it is laid out.

I was up there today because I decided to take the dog for a walk along Ivy Creek and take care of some errands while I was up there. Wow. I forgot just how horrible this area is. It's like the total opposite of intelligent design. I think I could write a book about what's wrong with the area.

I should say I didn't step foot in the mall.... I'm not talking about the mall specifically, as much as just all the stuff along GA 20 up there. What a cluster.

Anyway, the point of this thread is just to ask a question. When I look at how horribly everything is laid out combined with how generic most of the buildings are, all I could see was a day maybe 15 years from now, maybe 25, where people have decided to abandon the area and it looks like Pleasant Hill Road did in the late 2000s.

Do you think it's possible that the Mall of Georgia area could fall into suburban decay? Could you see a day where the Pleasant Hill corridor gentrifies and attracts retail and business from Mall of Georgia, causing it to sink into failure? If so, what would happen to the area? Would it become a suburban slum, or would it turn rural again?

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I typically avoid the Mall of Georgia area at all costs because of how horribly it is laid out.

I was up there today because I decided to take the dog for a walk along Ivy Creek and take care of some errands while I was up there. Wow. I forgot just how horrible this area is. It's like the total opposite of intelligent design. I think I could write a book about what's wrong with the area.

I should say I didn't step foot in the mall.... I'm not talking about the mall specifically, as much as just all the stuff along GA 20 up there. What a cluster.

Anyway, the point of this thread is just to ask a question. When I look at how horribly everything is laid out combined with how generic most of the buildings are, all I could see was a day maybe 15 years from now, maybe 25, where people have decided to abandon the area and it looks like Pleasant Hill Road did in the late 2000s.

Do you think it's possible that the Mall of Georgia area could fall into suburban decay? Could you see a day where the Pleasant Hill corridor gentrifies and attracts retail and business from Mall of Georgia, causing it to sink into failure? If so, what would happen to the area? Would it become a suburban slum, or would it turn rural again?

I tend to agree with your opinion. I do not like that area at all. Given the suburban developments akin to Avalon and other similar developments that are forthcoming, I do believe that MOG area will face some very challenging times in the years to come. A suburban slum? Hoping that won't happen. But, I do not believe the area has a chance to become rural again.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I typically avoid the Mall of Georgia area at all costs because of how horribly it is laid out.

I was up there today because I decided to take the dog for a walk along Ivy Creek and take care of some errands while I was up there. Wow. I forgot just how horrible this area is. It's like the total opposite of intelligent design. I think I could write a book about what's wrong with the area.

I should say I didn't step foot in the mall.... I'm not talking about the mall specifically, as much as just all the stuff along GA 20 up there. What a cluster.

Anyway, the point of this thread is just to ask a question. When I look at how horribly everything is laid out combined with how generic most of the buildings are, all I could see was a day maybe 15 years from now, maybe 25, where people have decided to abandon the area and it looks like Pleasant Hill Road did in the late 2000s.

Do you think it's possible that the Mall of Georgia area could fall into suburban decay? Could you see a day where the Pleasant Hill corridor gentrifies and attracts retail and business from Mall of Georgia, causing it to sink into failure? If so, what would happen to the area? Would it become a suburban slum, or would it turn rural again?

What, specifically, do you find so horrible?

[sedimenjerry]

Traffic up there is pretty bad.
I think the biggest problem is 20 is the ONLY major road access. 85 is right there, but you have to get on 20 first.
There is no road service AT ALL directly to the west. You have to cross 85 to get to Rock Springs Rd or go north to Plunkett. Again, have to drive on 20 to get to them and they're minor roads.

There's halfway decent connectivity to the east via 324 BUT it doesn't have access to 85 yet (they're planning on it eventually) meaning you have to drive to 124 to get to Hamilton Mill and then 85. Plus, not many people need to go that direction anyway.


I don't see it suffering the same fate as Gwinnett Place. This era is a low point for indoor shopping malls and I haven't heard anything bad about the mall itself. If it can survive this I think it'll be fine. For all we know, indoor malls could even make a comeback. People may get tired of shopping in the midday summer heat or winter cold. Plus, it's the largest in Georgia and I really think state leaders would try to do something to prop up the Mall of Georgia so it doesn't decline, even if that area does.

[Need4Camaro]

I agree that the area had poor foresight in regards to interchange layouts and accessibility.

There are some serious logistical flaws.

#1 Mall of Georgia Blvd intersection right after the I-85 interchange even though the interchange is a cloverleaf, the intersections right after it creates a huge bottleneck. This needs to be an overpass for Mall of GA Blvd with access to Mall of GA Blvd connected by Woodward Crossing Blvd which also provides access to the mall. Eliminating a signal for a major street that is fairly redundant.

#2 Mall of Georgia Blvd needs to be extended west (parallel with I-85) rather than ending shortly after the shopping centers. It would need to be extended to a high capacity Avenue that links Satalite Blvd and Old Peachtree Rd providing an alternative for local traffic to access or bypass that area.

#3 Woodward Crossing Blvd should also be extended to Old Peachtree Rd.

#4 GA-324 should be routed to meet GA-20 after Peachtree Industrial Blvd as to avoid that commercialized area.

----

There are hopes for improvement however. As per GADOT / Gwinnett DOT plans there will be 2 new ways to access that area in the future from I-85.

- GA-324 Interchange
- Sugarloaf Pkwy Extension

Jointly, those should really help GA-20 out alot.

As for Mall of GA's long term foresight in itself, I personally do not find Avalon and Mall of GA to be direct competitors (they are too far apart and Mall of GA is slightly more middle class than Avalon.) However one should note that Malls in general are no longer in their prime as they were between the 70's and 90's. In comparison to that era they are slowly dieing to online shopping making it possible to purchase comparable goods at much lower costs without needing to deal with traffic to enter a shopping district. Slowly fading away to that of a hobby or leisure. Jcpenney and Sears are anchor stores that are already mostly history. I would say...eventually yes... Mall of Georgia will meet a sad demise...but probably not within the next decade.

[arjay57]

This is a durn shame. They started this mall from scratch and had every opportunity to make it accessible.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by arjay57

This is a durn shame. They started this mall from scratch and had every opportunity to make it accessible.

Like many areas of the metro they probably werent expecting that area to explode in the way it has. I remember using GA 20 before the mall was even there. That was nothing but trees ... nothing there at all until you got to that Wal-Mart at I-985.

[ATLTJL]

Like many areas of the metro they probably weren't expecting that area to explode in the way it has.

I don't know about that....

The metro area had a very strong history of "build a mall and the masses will come" for decades before Mall of Georgia went up. It happened in Kennesaw, Duluth and Alpharetta years before Mall of Georgia.

I think they knew it would explode. They just didn't care. Back when that mall was built, we were just finishing up the mall culture, where there was cache in having the largest mall in XXX. If I recall, Mall of Georgia was originally supposed to be the largest mall in the southeast. I don't know what ever happened to that, but it ended up just being the largest mall in Georgia (who cares?)

Anyway...what I'm trying to say is there's absolutely no excuse for that area to be planned as poorly as it was. Even some of the satellite shopping centers were built so close to GA 20 that you can't get in and out of them without a huge mess because cars are coming from both sides, wanting to turn right or left, but there's not enough room for them to queue, so they are just blocking everything. It's a disaster.

[Soccernerd]

Mall of Georgia is probably the very last of the unmitigated big box stores centered around a super regional shopping center concept of the 90s and 2000s. I prefer smaller malls or ones that at least try to have walkable development around them.

[Clayton white guy]

Mall of Georgia is nice to me; I think it has every single department store that does business in the Peach State. Of course it is on the opposite side of the world for me. Still, I can't think of anyone land blasting the traffic in that area in particular: to an outsider like me, the traffic ALL of Gwinnett County feels the SAME, 78 corridor to I-85. This is NOT a Mall of Georgia/ GA 20 problem, it seems to me that it is a Gwinnett County problem. Really, I like the offerings of The Mall of Georgia and often stop there when I am on my way other places: South Carolina, the North Georgia Mountains, etc. It just is not a "destination" unto itself for me. If the Mall of Georgia was my local shopping center, however, I would be overjoyed. Avalon is certainly not as a big of a draw to me, they don't really offer as much to me and probably 99% of the people I know. In short, I would/ do pull off at Mall of Georgia on my way to/ from somewhere up the 85/985 corridor, but never do/ would even think about pulling off at Avalon on my way up and down 400 to somewhere else.

Mall of Georgia is probably pretty safe for decades to come.