Friday, August 21, 2009

Rich's, Lord & Taylor at Mall of Georgia

Mall of Georgia is ten years old and saw three original anchors come and go. Lord & Taylor and Galyan's both opened at the mall with the former closing and the latter converting over to Dick's after Galyan's parent company decided to abandon the high end sporting goods concept. Lord & Taylor actually was vacant a short time, but Belk used the location to test the waters to see if it could actually make it in Atlanta when it opened in the store in 2006. When it succeeded, it was not much longer before they opened at the former Lord & Taylor at North Point and subsequently bought out Parisian, which had many Atlanta locations in premier malls.


Rich's, of course, converted to Macy's in early 2005. The store opened at the mall a year after the mall did and was fully signed as Rich's. Galyan's also converted to Dick's in 2005. In all, even though the mall is only a decade old it was not immune to the crazed consolidations that happened during those years. Preserved here are a few photos of the Rich's and Lord & Taylor. Unfortunately, no pics were taken of Dick's as Galyan's.



Rich's mall entrance photos.



Exterior shots of the store while it was still looking very shiny and new.


This lone Lord & Taylor photo matches the Belk photo on the previous post. I never got a mall entrance photo, unfortunately.

5 comments:

  1. No loss on the L&T mall entrance. They're pretty much the same everywhere.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Galyan's was no more or less high end than Dick's. They started out in the Midwest being like REI and gradually became a second-rate version of REI with more lower priced lines and non-knowledgeable, largely non-existent service by the time the two operations were merged. they still sell small selection of high end sports equipment and clothing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was only in this mall once, back when it opened in 1999. I was doing IT for the Sharper Image, and we opened along with the rest of the mall in August. I remember it was one of those PITA openings, with nothing in our store going right (cash wrap problems, wiring problems, no place to put the back office PC, etc, etc) so I didn't get a chance to prowl the mall much. IIRC, the only restaurant in the food court that was open was Chick-Fil-A so we all waited forever for one of their dried-out chicken sandwiches. I do remember that it was August and HOT, so the mall was packed on opening day.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Atlanta retail is growing weak. Since 1995 when we first moved to this area, Northpoint Mall has lost Mervyns, Parisians, Lord and Taylor, and finally Belk(what were they doing by ugrading the L&T store and then leaving?)The Mall of Georgia is looking more like a flea market. Not that I don't like flea markets. Retail is comparatively sloppy looking here, vs out of state shopping. Sorry, many others live outside Buckhead, why shouldn't shopping be as good for those who can or will pay for the brick and mortar overhead? The Avenue and Forum are trying. While shopping online is great and wise to do, it seems , along with foreclosures, retail stores are following. While Dillards is good, their brand is slowing replacing many of the former other brands, Macy's is not like it used to be - Belks is trying but have not yet equalled the customer service, visual merchandising appeal, and overall store appeal that Parisians had. IMHO, anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's funny how both MOG and North Point lost LT and got Belk to replace it. Of course this Belk is doing great!

    ReplyDelete