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Gwinnett County has too many malls.
DeKalb County has too many malls.
Fulton County has too many malls.
Clayton County has ONE mall, and if Southlake were to close it would be a HUGE blow to the entire South Metro area, leaving Greenbriar as the ONLY (pitiful) mall below the I-20 corridor -- and that's entirely unacceptable.
Sure, Fayetteville, Newnan, Peachtree City and McDonough all have traditional mall stores in non-mall settings ... but still, there's something to be said for a LARGE ENCLOSED REGIONAL MALL. Even in this day and age, they play a role in retail and a community's sense of place. The northside malls that are healthy and thriving (you know what they are, no need to name them) are as popular as ever and people would be screaming if they seemed threatened. But nobody has any love for Southlake. Typical C-D bias.
Those are excellent points about the C-D Atlanta forum bias towards the Northside and about the dearth of enclosed regional shopping malls in the Atlanta region below the I-20 corridor.
I agree that it would be a huge blow to the community if Southlake Mall were to close.
To older generations of people who grew up and lived their formative and early adult years during the heyday of enclosed regional mall-dominated shopping, it will certainly be a huge blow to see an institution that we grew up with suddenly cease to exist.
But to younger generations who were born into and grew up in an era of declining mall viability, it likely may not necessarily have the same jarring effect to see a mall like Southlake close it doors.
Also, with farther-out Southern Crescent suburban areas like Fayette, Henry and Coweta now each having significant retail apparatuses of their own, it is difficult to say that those areas would be adversely affected by the closing of Southlake Mall in Clayton County....A mall that is nowhere near the regional draw that it was during its first two decades of operation with the growth and development of farther-out areas like Fayette, Henry and Coweta counties and with the shift in the retail market away from the domination of enclosed regional malls to big-box stores (Wal-Mart Supercenters, etc), open-air outdoor malls and online shopping.
Instead, it appears that at this point in time, the closing of Southlake Mall would be a huge psychological blow to a Clayton County community which has struggled and continues to struggle with a dramatic transition over the last 25 years from being a fairly stable and somewhat affluent suburb to a highly-transient post-suburban area that has been reported to basically lead the nation in the amount of rental housing and the percentage of renters (...Clayton County has been reported to have the 3rd-highest rate of renters in single-family homes in the nation).
Along with the aforementioned shift in the retail market and growth of farther-out areas in Henry, Fayette and Coweta counties, the dramatic shift in the socio-economic demographics of Clayton County from a largely affluent county dominated by financially-stable homeowners to a highly-transient county dominated by financially-unstable renters seems to have played one of the biggest roles in the steep decline of Southlake Mall.
There is also Stonecrest Mall south of I-20 in Lithonia. I am a huge south side supporter, but Southlake is just lacking big time. I went there last fall for the Macy's and to check it out generally, and it was a ghost town. The shopping selection is very poor. Not worth the trip. If I need a Macy's, I will go to Stonecrest given that I prefer that one and Stonecrest has other anchors that I like. But other than Macy's, Henry County has all the other anchors I frequent (in non-mall settings and it definitely can be inconvenient driving to multiple exits to go to several stores). But I'd really have to have a good excuse to go to Macy's to make the trip to either place. I would love to see Southlake improve, but I don't think fixing up the lights and painting it is going to be enough. They need to get some quality retail back in there. Someone posted a while back that a Pappadeux was coming to that area? Is that still happening? That would be a good step.
Although I occasionally shop in the store, Southlake is cursed with the misfortune to have Sears as one of it's 2 remaining large department store anchor tenants.
Sears as a large company is on the way out & I expect that their Southlake store will disappear eventually through no fault of the mall or it's customer base.
atler raises an excellent point about the struggles of a mall anchor department store like Sears which has not adjusted well to the shift in the retail market over the last 15-20 years and appears to be on the verge being insolvent in the not-too-distant future.
Though nowhere near to the extent that Sears has struggled, Southlake's other remaining anchor tenant, Macy's, has also struggled recently.
With the dramatic shift in the demographics of the area around Southlake, with the development of newer retail centers in farther-out areas in Fayette, Henry and Coweta counties and with the shift in the retail market as a whole away from enclosed regional mall shopping, much like other malls in metro Atlanta that are in steep decline (like with once-dominant Gwinnett Place Mall on the Northside), I unfortunately cannot say that I am optimistic about the continued survival chances of a mall like Southlake.
In a marketplace that currently seems to be overbuilt with retail, the malls that are surviving and continuing to thrive at the moment often seem to either have some type of niche that they are good at filling (like Buckhead's Lenox Square, for example) and/or are in an area where the demographics are much more favorable to their survival and success (like with malls that are located in or very close to areas of high-income earners with much disposable income).
Southlake's chances for continued survival seem to be hampered by having 2 struggling anchor tenants (one of which appears to be on the verge of insolvency) and by being located in an area where the demographics shifted dramatically over the last 25 years from financially-stable higher-income earners with much disposable income to financially-unstable lower-income earners with very little, if any disposable income.
Along with unfavorable local demographics, leapfrogging development patterns and an unfavorable retail marketplace, another problem with struggling mall properties like Southlake (and Gwinnett Place, etc) is that it is awfully difficult to attempt to resurrect a dying 20th Century (1960's, '70's, '80's, '90's) retail model of decades past (a large single-use enclosed structure surrounded by acres of parking) in an increasingly vastly different 21st Century retail marketplace that continues to move further and further away from the enclosed regional shopping mall-dominated retail model.....Particularly in a retail marketplace where the immediate successor to the enclosed regional shopping mall model of the late 20th Century, the big-box store model of the early 21st Century is also showing early signs of retreat and decline.
With the conditions not seeming to be in favor of Southlake's long-term survival, I see the best use for the Southlake property long-term likely being as light industrial/distribution/research property and possibly maybe some limited office commercial.
Even with the increasing struggles of Southlake Mall, I think that there is a future for large-scale retail activity in Clayton County. But I think that large-scale retail activity is likely to shift elsewhere in the area long-term, particularly if high-capacity rail transit service is ever implemented through the area along the nearby Norfolk Southern S-Line that runs through the center of Clayton County south of Atlanta.
I think that over the long-term, large-scale retail activity in Clayton County is likely to shift from an area like the Southlake Mall area to an area that will be in a high-density mixed-use complex (office, lodging, restaurants, retail, high-density housing) located immediately on and near a high-capacity rail transit line.
With Clayton County's very close location to the world's busiest airport and with assets like Clayton State University and a centralized location in the fast-growing Atlanta metro area, I like the potential for large-scale retail to be revived in Clayton County over the long-term.....I just don't feel good about the chances of large-scale retail activity being revived at the current Southlake Mall property moving forward.
With current conditions and seeing where the retail marketplace is going, a return to the conditions under which Southlake Mall thrived during its first two decades of existence just seems to be completely out of the question at this point in time and moving forward.
Last edited by Born 2 Roll; 04-28-2016 at 04:17 PM..
JUST TO CLARIFY: Yes, while Stonecrest and Arbor Place are both technically SOUTH of I-20, they are EAST and WEST metro shopping nodes DORECTLY ON the I-20 corridor ... the wedge of South Metro Atlanta between I-75 and I-85, below each, has just ONE regional mall -- Southlake, which is barely hanging on. And that's terrible.
JUST TO CLARIFY: Yes, while Stonecrest and Arbor Place are both technically SOUTH of I-20, they are EAST and WEST metro shopping nodes DORECTLY ON the I-20 corridor ... the wedge of South Metro Atlanta between I-75 and I-85, below each, has just ONE regional mall -- Southlake, which is barely hanging on. And that's terrible.
Even though it is not enclosed like most regional shopping malls built before about 2005 or so, I think that Ashley Park just west off I-85 South and Georgia 34 in Newnan is technically considered to be a regional mall. Ashley Park pulls from across much of the Southern Crescent (with the likely exception of Henry County on the I-75 Southeast axis which has its own major open-air retail centers at 2-3 exits off I-75 in the McDonough area).
An as open-air regional shopping mall/lifestyle center, Ashley Park is an example of how they don't build regional shopping malls like they used to in the past as large enclosed structures.
Now they build them as open-air shopping centers (with a reduced retail footprint for a 21st Century retail marketplace with reduced sales from brick-and-mortal stores) that one can drive through like they were driving down Main Street.
I can understand some of your arguments, but Southlake isn't dead quite yet. It has much more traffic than Greenbriar or Gwinett Place Malls, it just mostly caters to low income people. (Though can you consider Hollister and Aeropostale which are very popular in Clayton, low income?). They are actually succeeding in attracting new restaurants such as Pappadeaux and I'm sure retail will follow as the urban northern sections of Clayton gentrify and attract higher incomes.
I can understand some of your arguments, but Southlake isn't dead quite yet. It has much more traffic than Greenbriar or Gwinett Place Malls, it just mostly caters to low income people. (Though can you consider Hollister and Aeropostale which are very popular in Clayton, low income?). They are actually succeeding in attracting new restaurants such as Pappadeaux and I'm sure retail will follow as the urban northern sections of Clayton gentrify and attract higher incomes.
I went to Southlake a few years ago. It's definitely not dead, but it could use some help especially as the main mall down there. Gwinnett Place is in real bad shape but, you have Sugarloaf Mills just 4 miles up 85 and MOG 11 miles up. Gwinnett is at least well served even without GP.
I can understand some of your arguments, but Southlake isn't dead quite yet. It has much more traffic than Greenbriar or Gwinett Place Malls, it just mostly caters to low income people. (Though can you consider Hollister and Aeropostale which are very popular in Clayton, low income?). They are actually succeeding in attracting new restaurants such as Pappadeaux and I'm sure retail will follow as the urban northern sections of Clayton gentrify and attract higher incomes.
For a struggling mall like Southlake, having more foot traffic than malls like Greenbriar and Gwinnett Place is not a bad thing. Unfortunately having more foot traffic than those struggling malls is not a very high bar to clear these days.
It is very appropriate that you mention Greenbriar and Southlake Malls because Southlake Mall pretty much seems to be in a similar situation as those declining malls.
Unsubstantiated rumors keep floating around that the Greenbriar Mall property is possibly slated to become a TV and film production complex after the shopping center closes in the not-too-distant future.
Meanwhile there is talk of the Gwinnett Place Mall property possibly becoming a high-density mixed-use TOD (transit-oriented development) built around a station on a future high-capacity rail transit line that will connect the area to Atlanta.
It is not just the Southlake Mall property itself that is struggling but it is the entire Southlake area retail district that is struggling mightily with declining sales, empty storefronts and vacant shopping plazas.
I agree that there may be some degree of gentrification in Clayton County in the future, most potentially in the Forest Park, Lake City, Clayton State University, Morrow city and Jonesboro areas.
But any large-scale gentrification of Clayton County still seems to be many years off in the future, likely after high-capacity rail transit service (high-frequency Heavy Rail and commuter rail transit) is implemented through the area along the Norfolk Southern S-Line corridor that has been targeted for future rail transit service.
In the meantime Clayton County still has much work to do to make itself an attractive destination for gentrification on the scale that could be competitive with Intown and near north suburban areas.
By the time that such a larger-scale gentrification of Clayton County could take place that is competitive with Intown and near north suburban areas, Southlake Mall will likely be a distant memory and the development of retail likely will have shifted to walkable transit-oriented mixed-use village developments along high-capacity transit lines in the aforementioned areas of Forest Park, Lake City, CSU, Morrow city and Jonesboro areas.
Like its struggling mall counterparts around the Atlanta metro area (Greenbriar, Gwinnett Place, South DeKalb Mall, North DeKalb Mall, etc), I expect that Southlake Mall and its adjoining retail district will continue to limp along in decline for a few more years (probably for about no more than a decade or so) before eventually closing for good and being replaced with some other use on the properties (maybe such as industrial).
With a shifting retail marketplace and increasingly disadvantageous socioeconomic demographics in the surrounding area (over the last 25 years, Clayton County has gone from being a fairly affluent suburban county to being one of the absolute poorest suburban counties in the entire nation), I just can't see Southlake Mall ever recovering to what it was in its heyday during its first two decades of existence.
I think that Clayton County will have an opportunity to improve its fortunes as urban living continues to become more popular....But the county likely will not truly have that opportunity to make dramatic improvement until high-capacity rail transit service (regional Heavy Rail and commuter rail service) is implemented through the county, a development that is likely still several years away.
JUST TO CLARIFY: Yes, while Stonecrest and Arbor Place are both technically SOUTH of I-20, they are EAST and WEST metro shopping nodes DORECTLY ON the I-20 corridor ... the wedge of South Metro Atlanta between I-75 and I-85, below each, has just ONE regional mall -- Southlake, which is barely hanging on. And that's terrible.
How is that terrible? That is the market forces and shopper decide with their wallets. While Southlake closing would be a disastrous effect on Clayton County, but it could also open up opportunity for another, more modern type of retail center, along the future transit line.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll
For a struggling mall like Southlake, having more foot traffic than malls like Greenbriar and Gwinnett Place is not a bad thing. Unfortunately having more foot traffic than those struggling malls is not a very high bar to clear these days.
It is very appropriate that you mention Greenbriar and Southlake Malls because Southlake Mall pretty much seems to be in a similar situation as those declining malls.
Unsubstantiated rumors keep floating around that the Greenbriar Mall property is possibly slated to become a TV and film production complex after the shopping center closes in the not-too-distant future.
Meanwhile there is talk of the Gwinnett Place Mall property possibly becoming a high-density mixed-use TOD (transit-oriented development) built around a station on a future high-capacity rail transit line that will connect the area to Atlanta.
It is not just the Southlake Mall property itself that is struggling but it is the entire Southlake area retail district that is struggling mightily with declining sales, empty storefronts and vacant shopping plazas.
I agree that there may be some degree of gentrification in Clayton County in the future, most potentially in the Forest Park, Lake City, Clayton State University, Morrow city and Jonesboro areas.
But any large-scale gentrification of Clayton County still seems to be many years off in the future, likely after high-capacity rail transit service (high-frequency Heavy Rail and commuter rail transit) is implemented through the area along the Norfolk Southern S-Line corridor that has been targeted for future rail transit service.
In the meantime Clayton County still has much work to do to make itself an attractive destination for gentrification on the scale that could be competitive with Intown and near north suburban areas.
By the time that such a larger-scale gentrification of Clayton County could take place that is competitive with Intown and near north suburban areas, Southlake Mall will likely be a distant memory and the development of retail likely will have shifted to walkable transit-oriented mixed-use village developments along high-capacity transit lines in the aforementioned areas of Forest Park, Lake City, CSU, Morrow city and Jonesboro areas.
Like its struggling mall counterparts around the Atlanta metro area (Greenbriar, Gwinnett Place, South DeKalb Mall, North DeKalb Mall, etc), I expect that Southlake Mall and its adjoining retail district will continue to limp along in decline for a few more years (probably for about no more than a decade or so) before eventually closing for good and being replaced with some other use on the properties (maybe such as industrial).
With a shifting retail marketplace and increasingly disadvantageous socioeconomic demographics in the surrounding area (over the last 25 years, Clayton County has gone from being a fairly affluent suburban county to being one of the absolute poorest suburban counties in the entire nation), I just can't see Southlake Mall ever recovering to what it was in its heyday during its first two decades of existence.
I think that Clayton County will have an opportunity to improve its fortunes as urban living continues to become more popular....But the county likely will not truly have that opportunity to make dramatic improvement until high-capacity rail transit service (regional Heavy Rail and commuter rail service) is implemented through the county, a development that is likely still several years away.
I can answer this question for you, Greenbriar Mall isn't going anywhere. It is in a similar situation as the Gallery at South Dekalb where it is a community shopping center that does pretty well on weekends and holidays. As a matter of fact the whole Greenbriar area is in the process of doing another phase of its revitalization with the opening of the Planet Fitness and PNC Bank in the coming weeks.
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