Dying malls are usually easy to spot.
They tend to feature vacant department stores and deserted parking lots. Many are plastered with “all must go” signs or outdated promotions.
North Point Mall in Alpharetta, however, doesn’t fit that description even though its days are likely numbered.
“I remember days where I used to see Kenny Rogers or Whitney Houston shopping in the mall,” said Selcuk Ozcelebi, who has run embroidery shop Stitch by Stitch for 25 years. “But now that has changed. We get less traffic than we used to.”
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
North Point Mall continues to attract about 3.3 million shoppers annually and has a steady calendar of events, promotions and new-store openings. But few people deny that the shopping center is past its prime, especially given the valuable real estate it sits atop.
Mall ownership has been trying for years to redevelop the 1.3 million-square-foot shopping center that’s located 25 miles north of Atlanta. Prior attempts were rejected by Alpharetta leaders. But the mall’s owner, insurance giant New York Life, is now pursuing its most ambitious pitch yet — razing North Point to create a dense entertainment district and an arena capable of hosting an NHL expansion franchise.
New York Life tapped Jamestown, the developer behind Ponce City Market and operator of Alpharetta’s Avalon, to run the mall in the interim and work toward that redevelopment vision. It filed a rezoning application in March, the first hurdle of many that the project will need to clear to become reality.
“This is a very time-consuming process to even be in a position to put a shovel in the ground,” said Alan Rubenstein, regional head of asset management at New York Life. “So, I think the mall will be around for well over a year in its current state.”
Credit: Courtesy of Jamestown Properties
Credit: Courtesy of Jamestown Properties
Landing NHL hockey is far from a certainty.
Atlanta has twice had franchises in the Flames and Thrashers that came and left after failing to catch on. Other cities would also love to land a franchise, including ones that have yet to have their first crack at the NHL.
It’s also unclear who would own such a team and pay the reported $2 billion fee for NHL franchise rights.
And, beyond the proposal for North Point, a competing metro Atlanta group has pitched a similar project a few miles north along Ga. 400 called The Gathering at South Forsyth.
But the New York Life-Jamestown planning has sparked interest from fans who long for pro hockey’s return. It’s also a plan that stirs up emotions for anyone invested in one of metro Atlanta’s largest regional malls, which has survived through shifting retail trends, the rise of e-commerce and the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The nostalgia of the 33-year-old shopping hub collides with the prospect of professional sports, leaving North Point Mall tenants in flux as they wait for what comes next.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
“When everybody comes in, the first thing they say is, ‘Oh my God, they’re going to tear it all down,’” said Lisa Clements, who runs an art studio and barbershop combo called V’Zion Studio in the mall with her husband.
“I’m like, ‘Listen, we have a proposal out there, but we’re still here. We’re not going anywhere,’” she continued. “We have a few more years. Keep shopping and keep coming in.”
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
A mall’s life cycle
Mario Mireles remembers North Point Mall in its heyday.
Built in 1993, it was one of the Southeast’s largest shopping destinations that helped contribute to Alpharetta’s rise from sleepy suburb to development hub.
“It opened to tremendous fanfare,” said Mireles, now North Point Mall’s general manager. “It filled a big niche.”
Dan George, owner of Personal Touch Jewelry, saw it as the perfect environment to lay down roots and grow a business. He urged the mall’s original developer, Sears’ subsidiary Homart Development Co., to give him a chance running a jewelry cart during the mall’s first holiday rush.
“I’m not looking just for the season,” George said, recalling his sales pitch from the time. “I’m looking to build a business here.”
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
He’s still in the mall more than three decades later, but instead of operating a cart, he’s in a prime storefront right by Macy’s.
Department stores are the lifeblood of regional malls, drawing in customers with constant promotions and a variety of wares. That business then trickles down to help support other tenants, Mireles said.
A roster of vacant department stores is usually a death knell for a mall, but North Point only features one shuttered big box store. Sears closed its location in 2018, which coupled with the ensuing COVID-19 pandemic helped push the mall to the brink of foreclosure. New York Life acquired it in January 2021, immediately conjuring up redevelopment plans.
“Real estate is a life cycle,” Mireles said. “North Point, if it was a living being, has had a great life.”
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
No new malls
Mireles, who has worked in regional shopping centers for decades across the country, said he’s seen that even successful malls can’t escape the effects of time or the shifts in shopping tastes.
North Point has remained fairly resilient throughout that change, he said, unlike other Atlanta area malls that are husks of their former selves or already demolished.
North DeKalb Mall, which became so deserted it turned into a filming location, has been torn down to make way for a mixed-use project called Lulah Hills. Several other Atlanta area malls are on the chopping block or grappling with dwindling vendors. Even malls that remain full, such as Buckhead’s Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza, have invested in mixed-use additions.
“You’re not seeing new malls spring up, but you are seeing redevelopments,” Mireles said.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
He said no one would build a traditional shopping mall on the North Point site today, which is why Jamestown’s proposal better fits the moment.
In addition to a 20,000-seat hockey arena and practice rink, the proposed project ratchets up the density with 1,385 apartments, 850 hotel rooms and 750,000 square feet of office space. It also includes 907,000 square feet of retail and dining spaces — not a significant decrease from the 1.3 million square feet currently included in the mall.
Frances Bohn, director of development and construction for Jamestown in North America, said the sports elements are on their own development tract, and project phases will be determined once the rezoning takes place.
Credit: Courtesy of Jamestown Properties
Credit: Courtesy of Jamestown Properties
There are financial hurdles and doubts over whether NHL leadership would award the Atlanta area its third franchise, but Bohn said the appetite seems to be there from fans.
“The overwhelmingly positive response we’ve seen to everything really underscores how excited Atlanta is for an NHL team,” Bohn said. ”… We definitely need NHL here in Atlanta. Everybody wants it.”
The Forsyth County project is already zoned and shovel-ready, waiting for NHL approval to move forward. But the commissioner’s office has been non-committal, saying any prospective ownership groups will need at least $2 billion to be considered. It’s also unclear if that’s a hurdle the Alpharetta effort can clear.
‘A metamorphosis’
Despite the inevitability that something more valuable and modern will replace the mall in the future, Mireles is tasked with keeping it vibrant and alive until then.
It’s a unique situation among Atlanta area mall owners, which typically wait for shopping centers to fully die before plans move forward for their next chapter.
“North Point is in a really good position in the sense that we have a plan and it didn’t happen overnight,” he said. “It’s a metamorphosis more than a termination and a new start.”
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Mireles declined to provide the mall’s vacancy rate or its financial performance. But he pointed to the millions of annual visitors, a robust event calendar and the enthusiasm of tenants to bolster the mall’s health. He also said nostalgia is a powerful emotion that can be leveraged because customers who grew up at the mall can now relive that experience through their kids.
“We raised our kids in this mall, so this is home for us,” Clements of V’Zion Studio said.
Lisa Amundsen opened a kiosk called Le Macaron at North Point in 2019, hoping to get in on the ground floor of change likely to come to the shopping center.
Instead, she was welcomed with a pandemic shutdown and disruption, but she said business has steadily recovered. She hopes her loyalty to the mall opens the door to a cafe opportunity in the future.
“We’ve just been biding our time and hoping that we get to still be here in the next phase,” Amundsen said. “We’ll stick it out.”
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Chris Lagerbloom, city administrator for Alpharetta, said drastic change like the one proposed for North Point Mall will take time to come to fruition. First, the City Council has to determine whether Jamestown’s redevelopment is appropriate, a process that will likely take months this summer.
“If they make the decision that the land use is right, then we’re going to kick in and do everything to advance their vision,” Lagerbloom said. “And if that vision includes professional sports, then we’ll be right there ready to make it happen.”
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