Is Stonecrest coming back (Atlanta, Sandy Springs: apartment, homes, neighborhood)

[JMatl]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

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I believe Gwinnett Place Mall's death was unintentionally induced more or less. With the construction of North Lake Mall which cut into its shopper base and eventually Mall of Georgia.

Did you mean to say NorthPoint? Northlake opened in the early 70's, the Perimeter was brand new. Pleasant Hill and 85 were surrounded by big woods back then.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

I believe Gwinnett Place Mall's death was unintentionally induced more or less. With the construction of North Lake Mall which cut into its shopper base and eventually Mall of Georgia

Originally Posted by JMatl

Did you mean to say NorthPoint? Northlake opened in the early 70's, the Perimeter was brand new. Pleasant Hill and 85 were surrounded by big woods back then.

I'm pretty sure that Need4Camaro meant to say North Point Mall.

… That is the mall whose opening (in 1993) started the initial decline of Gwinnett Place Mall before the openings of the Mall of Georgia (1999) and Sugarloaf Mills (2001), of course, steepened the decline of GPM even further along with the proliferation of Walmart Supercenters and other major shopping developments in Gwinnett County, etc., etc.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

I'm pretty sure that Need4Camaro meant to say North Point Mall.

… That is the mall whose opening (in 1993) started the initial decline of Gwinnett Place Mall before the openings of the Mall of Georgia (1999) and Sugarloaf Mills (2001), of course, steepened the decline of GPM even further along with the proliferation of Walmart Supercenters and other major shopping developments in Gwinnett County, etc., etc.

I think with just North Point Mall, Gwinnett Place Mall was fine.

Remember, back then, there was a pent up demand for major retail/a mall in North Fulton.


What killed GPM? Mall of GA and Sugarloaf/Discover Mills.

If not for MOG and SM, GPM would now be more like Town Center Mall in Cobb - or even better (since all of the "stuff" at MOG would probably still be located at GPM).

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by aries4118

I think with just North Point Mall, Gwinnett Place Mall was fine.

Remember, back then, there was a pent up demand for major retail/a mall in North Fulton.

That is a good point that Gwinnett Place Mall was still fine after the opening of North Point Mall.

The term "initial decline" potentially may have come across as being too strong of term to describe the situation as I was not trying to imply that North Point Mall killed Gwinnett Place Mall.

But the opening of North Point Mall is the point in time at which Gwinnett Place Mall was no longer the only major enclosed regional shopping mall in North/Northeast metro Atlanta beyond Perimeter Mall.

Beyond Perimeter Mall, Gwinnett Place Mall had much of the entire North/Northeast metro Atlanta market to itself for the first 9 or so years of its existence (1984-1993).

After North Point Mall opened in 1993, GPM no longer had that lucrative North/Northeast metro Atlanta market to itself, but instead had to share that market with a then brand-spanking-new North Point Mall... A brand-spanking new North Point Mall that was now pulling customers away from a then 9-year-old GPM... Many of them who were normally GPM customers but who wanted to visit the newest, shiniest mall at North Point Mall after it first opened in '93.

You are definitely right that North Point Mall did not kill Gwinnett Place Mall. But North Point Mall did seem to be kind of the first significant bump in the road of sorts for a Gwinnett Place Mall development that really had little competition for the first 9 years of its existence.

Originally Posted by aries4118

What killed GPM? Mall of GA and Sugarloaf/Discover Mills.

If not for MOG and SM, GPM would now be more like Town Center Mall in Cobb - or even better (since all of the "stuff" at MOG would probably still be located at GPM).

That is a good point that Gwinnett Place Mall might likely be more like a Town Center Mall in Cobb (which is a mall that ironically currently still has all 5 of its anchor stores) if competing malls like the Mall of Georgia and Sugarloaf Mills had not opened in 1999 and 2001, respectively.

But like I noted in a previous comment about GPM, because of its location in an exceedingly developer-friendly and development-minded county like Gwinnett, it was pretty much 'baked in the cake' from the beginning that a retail development like GPM would eventually decline from too much retail competition in the county.

The same exceedingly developer-friendly and development-minded culture in Gwinnett that led to too much retail being built in the county after GPM (including at the Mall of Georgia, Sugarloaf Mills, Forum on P'tree Pkwy, etc.) is the same exceedingly developer-friendly and development-minded culture that led to the construction of Gwinnett Place Mall in the early 1980's.

With a county government like Gwinnett's being so exceedingly close with real estate developers from about 1970 onward, there was no way that a retail development like GPM was going to be able to continue to go for an indefinite period of time without being challenged by newer retail developments like the Mall of Georgia, Sugarloaf Mills, numerous Walmart Supercenters, etc., etc., etc.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by JMatl

Did you mean to say NorthPoint? Northlake opened in the early 70's, the Perimeter was brand new. Pleasant Hill and 85 were surrounded by big woods back then.

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Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

I'm pretty sure that Need4Camaro meant to say North Point Mall.

… That is the mall whose opening (in 1993) started the initial decline of Gwinnett Place Mall before the openings of the Mall of Georgia (1999) and Sugarloaf Mills (2001), of course, steepened the decline of GPM even further along with the proliferation of Walmart Supercenters and other major shopping developments in Gwinnett County, etc., etc.

ooops. Yeah I meant N.Point Mall in Alpharetta.

I used to go there to hang out until 7pm to wait for traffic to die down on Windward as well as McGinnis Ferry before commuting home.

Godiva Chocolate
Cheesecake Factory
and I bought my mom a Christmas Present (by accident) as an aggressive salesman somehow convinced me to buy skin treatment.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Crime probably would not be anymore of a problem than it already is in some parts of the area with a Lithonia address.

Keep in mind that any industrial development that replaced unused retail space in the Stonecrest Mall area would be new construction that would not be aged enough to be blighted.

Also, after awhile, it becomes a point at which the existing retail development in the just simply no longer is able to generate enough revenue to pay into the local tax base.

With a list of major retail departures that includes Target, Sears, Kohls, Sam's Club and Best Buy, it likely will come down to a choice of whether the municipal government of the City of Stonecrest (along with area landowners) wants to hold on to a retail district that, while not as close to the end as an area like Gwinnett Place Mall, is still clearly trending in an unfavorable direction with the continuing loss of so many major retailers, or whether they want to turn to fostering development types that (while not as sexy as a major retail development) will generate some type of meaningful amount of revenue into the local tax base.

And we all know that generating revenue pretty much always wins out in the end.

I do not think that the extension of MARTA out to the Stonecrest Mall area is completely out of the question. But in an environment where transit resources continue to be limited and where there seems to be more interest in and more demand for more densely developed and inhabited areas closer to the city (particularly inside of the I-285 Perimeter), I'm not sure if extending MARTA rail service out to an area of declining retail development at and around Stonecrest Mall will be a top priority anytime soon.

Other challenges for the Stonecrest Mall development are that:

> It is relatively isolated away from more in-demand areas closer to and in the urban core of the Atlanta metro area inside and around the Top End of the I-285 Perimeter...

> And that it is a declining retail district (anchored by a challenged enclosed regional shopping mall in an era when malls are in very steep decline and when bricks-and-mortar retail is in extreme contraction) in an area (the I-20 East corridor of metro Atlanta) that is over-retailed for the increasingly modest average incomes it features (… the Stonecrest Mall area has to compete directly with a large cluster of retail about 7 miles to the east in the area of I-20 and GA-20/138 in Conyers)…

Replacing the retail in and around Stonecrest Mall with industrial development would not be out of spite, but would just merely be an acknowledgement of the fact that there just simply is not enough demand for the amount of retail space that now exists in that area.



These comments raise a very important point: That one of the (many) factors that is working against a development like Stonecrest Mall moving forward, is the larger societal trend of many younger professionals away from suburban areas (like a Stonecrest Mall and I-20 East corridor) towards more urbanized mixed-use neighborhoods and districts in areas closer to the urban core.

Combine that with average incomes and buying power in the surrounding area that overall is stagnant and declining, and a retail marketplace that continues to be in a state of extreme contraction entering the first year of the 2020's decade (with an economic slowdown possible in the not-too-distant future) and one might see why there may be some onlookers who may not be the most optimistic about the long-term health of an area like Stonecrest Mall.

That's a truism that is not true. The % of people in the suburbs continues to grow. Its just that the inner core is no longer declining but is growing also, but slower than the suburbs. Some of the aging inner suburbs are declining as newer, bigger stuff gets built further out.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by aries4118

I think with just North Point Mall, Gwinnett Place Mall was fine.

Remember, back then, there was a pent up demand for major retail/a mall in North Fulton.


What killed GPM? Mall of GA and Sugarloaf/Discover Mills.

If not for MOG and SM, GPM would now be more like Town Center Mall in Cobb - or even better (since all of the "stuff" at MOG would probably still be located at GPM).

It still has the best location of all of them. I suspect it was poor management, coupled with competition, coupled with the general decline of malls in favor of power centers. Amazon was the final nail.

[JMatl]

Originally Posted by bu2

It still has the best location of all of them. I suspect it was poor management, coupled with competition, coupled with the general decline of malls in favor of power centers. Amazon was the final nail.

There was no poor management factor, GP was fine and was run well.

I agree with aries4118. If not for the MoG and to a lesser extent Sugarloaf Mills, GP would likely be in much better shape and would more resemble present day Town Center at Cobb.

[arjay57]

It has always seemed to me that some of the most popular retailers in the GPM area are in the smaller strip centers and big box stores nearby.

If GPM could have recruited some of them into the mall itself they probably would have been better off.

[JMatl]

Originally Posted by arjay57

It has always seemed to me that some of the most popular retailers in the GPM area are in the smaller strip centers and big box stores nearby.

If GPM could have recruited some of them into the mall itself they probably would have been better off.

I wonder how that Megamart from Seoul is working out as an anchor? I haven't been out that way in a long time.