Oak Ridge Mall: Oak Ridge, TN

Back on our out-of-state march, Tennessee is a hotbed of small malls that anywhere else in the country would have been dead and long forgotten. This time, I'm going to do a feature of the "downtown" of Tennessee's nuclear city, Oak Ridge. Indeed, it has not fallen flat on city leaders that a dying mall hardly looks like people's image of downtown much like a lot of the country that fell to the post-WWII tax policies that led to the suburban sprawl of America and the retail behemoths that have dominated the landscape since the 1970's.


Originally opened in 1957, Oak Ridge Mall was known for 30 years as Downtown Shopping Center, a large strip center anchored by The Knox/Proffitt's, JCPenney, Sears, Loveman's (of Chattanooga), Miller's and GC Murphy.  The mergers that occurred in the 1980's that resulted in Loveman's, Miller's and Proffitt's all becoming the same store are why the later mall did not end up with five department store anchors.  Oak Ridge Mall followed the course of quite a few malls in the country that started out as a mere 1950's strip and were enclosed and expanded into a full-scale shopping mall. The only difference was, this one was a strip mall all the way to 1987 instead of the 1970's...not exactly the best timing for such projects as new malls were already proving to find it more difficult to compete in contrast with previous decades. Indeed, Oak Ridge Mall never really took off and was largely vacant aside from the anchors as recent as my March 2005 visit. I had heard a couple years before it was dying, so this is why I came by to visit just to see what this place was all about.


I do not know a whole lot about Oak Ridge Mall other than this, and the fact that it always had Sears as an anchor. The original Sears anchor was abandoned in what was left of the strip in my 2005 visit and did not connect to the rest of the mall. The anchors, however, appeared healthy and successful with a cheery, but very vacant corridor tying them together. In all, the anchors in 2005 were Proffitt's, Sears, JCPenney and a stadium-seating movie theater on an outlot.  Proffitt's was added in 1987 as Hess's while the fourth vacant anchor in the middle of the mall was the original Proffitt's, originally known as The Knox.  They once operated as a double-header Proffitt's, but it's unclear when it closed.  At least one mall corridor was sealed off to the general public on the visit as you will see below, which looked to be the food court.  A combination of the completion of TN 162 creating access to better access to malls in Knoxville and poor management caused the mall to to fail.

In allover layout, the mall was an L-shaped mall with JCPenney on one end (a strip attached to the other-side), Proffitt's (formerly Hess's, now a Belk) on the other, Sears off to the side of Proffitt's and the former The Knox/Proffitt's in the middle. The mall seemed difficult to access on the side that was once the back of the strip mall, and it was sealed off when I visited.

Vacant Hess's/Proffitt's in center court area.

In 2008, the project that was promised to start in late 2005 right after I visited seems to be permanently on hold. (Note 7/24/2016: demolition has now begun on the long-abandoned mall).  The mall itself has since been sealed off to the public with some "physical activity" occuring at the site. While I was hardly bowled over by the place, fanatics of late 80's architecture should be very excited about this view of a once-strip mall, then mall and now...nothing.

Looking down the entire Sears wing.

Something seems VERY ironic about the "shopoakridgemall.com" banner.

Proffitt's entrance...note the holes for what was formerly Hess's.

Another view of center court.

This was the original Sears store sitting abandoned on the JCPenney end of the mall on a small strip mall wing.

This appeared to be the entrance to the food court, and the food court area is very visibly sealed off from the rest of the mall.

Rack Room Shoes finally realized the party was over and it was time to leave.

Del Taco

Del Taco is a staple in the southwest, and more than once attempted to gain the
national exposure of Taco Bell. Unfortunately, this did not seem to work out so well for the company, which has retracted completely to its core market with a few exceptions. Today, the only Del Taco remaining in Georgia is on St. Simons Island, which as of recent still looks exactly the same as its initial entry into Georgia.


Del Taco's grand entry into Georgia came in 1980 where it opened many, many locations across the state. While it was initially quite successful, its fortunes began to wane across the state by the end of the 1980's. In 1992, after only 12 years, every single Del Taco closed with exception to St Simons, meaning lots of vacant restaurants and an end to an era where Georgians were offered an alternative to Taco Bell for fast-food Mexican.


Alas! Del Taco wasn't through with the Peach State yet! In 1995, it came back but this time with a different logo and all new locations. The new locations were almost all joint locations with Mrs. Winner's, which to those not from Georgia is a local chicken restaurant. The only free-standing one to knowledge was in the Food Court at North Point Mall, which actually may have been there longer. Unfortunately, this new concept of two in one lasted even less long than the previous, and the locations all fell into poor management by the end of the decade. By late 2001, Del Taco was removed from all the Mrs. Winner's restaurants that it shared, now all just Mrs. Winner's.


Today, unless you're visiting St. Simons Island, Del Taco is not on the menu in Georgia. Nevertheless, a few of its scars remain including this notable one in the photos here in Cedartown, GA. Until recently, this location looked like it had just closed despite being closed over a decade. In fact, the sign continued to read "Closed. Thanks For 12 Great Years" with absolutely no vandalism or missing letters for at least a decade. Most of the others have been converted to other uses or demolished.

Georgia Square Mall: Athens, GA

Athens is best known for University of Georgia, the oldest university in the United States, and the small city that grew around it. While not a major city, the sheer size and economic impact of UGA gives the entire city in the northeastern part of the state a big city feel. While not located on or even very near any interstate, the city is ringed by a major freeway (Loop 10), features a vibrant urban scene and has created a relatively fast growing metro area that has spilled into neighboring counties outside of the consolidated Athens-Clarke County. Such growth and the encroaching Atlanta area has recently pushed a plan to upgrade its major link to Atlanta, GA 316, into a freeway or toll road.


The impact of the university and the money that came with it was not lost on retailers. The City of Athens had its very own branch of Davison's in downtown alongside much larger Augusta and Macon, and in 1981 Athens got its very own Atlanta-style mall with Georgia Square. Georgia Square, needless to say, was a mall of its time. It was so outlandishly 70's/80's modern that it was jokingly referred to as the "Disco Mall". Even to this day and subsequent renovations, this is not lost on the center. It's latest renovation actually seems to very successfully take it actually back to its roots as a mall that paid its reverences to the era of polyester, disco music, skating rinks and Atari.


Georgia Square was also responsible for the end of the downtown retail era in Athens. When the mall opened, all of the stores formerly in downtown including Davison's and Belk packed up and staked their claim in the large two-story mall. It is rather easy to see why this happened, as travel in downtown is very difficult on a normal day and parking was impossible. In finding the original Davison's store, I found that it was impossible to get a parking place near the store, which is now part of UGA. Nevertheless, at the time the mall was built there was concern the mall was too large for its market considering that Athens was not a very large city and that the surrounding market was all rural. Nearby Barrow County and Jackson Counties were remote farming eras when the mall opened while today they are dotted with many new subdivisions. That has not held back the mall, though, in that not only the help of college crowds but also its super-regional status have made the center more than successful...especially for shoppers weary of chaotic Atlanta traffic to the west.

Disco-style bulbs hang over the lower level entrance to JCPenney

Also, the mall's opening brought out a plethora of retail onto what was then US 29/78. Nearly every retail chain came into the area including one of the most remote locations of Richway, even though there had never been a Rich's in that city up to that time period. While the Richway is gone, the area around Georgia Square both to the west and east along Atlanta Highway (US 78 Business) remains the premier retail corridor in the city. Little changes have occurred to the mall either beyond cosmetic. All of the original anchors remain to this day with exception to the Davison's. Its wild name changes took it from Davison's to Macy's in 1986, Rich's in 1998, Rich's-Macy's in 2003 and back to Macy's in 2005.

A rare look at the short-lived Rich's at Georgia Square. Note the classic Davison's/Macy's exterior of the era. It's just as classic inside!

The mall itself has a slightly distinct layout in that it is not entirely a two-story mall. In fact, the mall shrinks to one level on the west end just before the Sears, accessed by escalators that climb beside a wall that leads to bathrooms under the esclators and a very peculiar truncation of the structure at that. The Sears is also the only one level anchor at the mall. In contrast, the Belk is one of very few original two-story Belks in Georgia. The Davison's/Macy's is what is really the experience of the mall, though. The store is completely in a time warp and has never been updated at all since the mall opened. Both inside and out, the store looks like it would have fit right in with the "Dynasty" era chocked full of women with short hair wearing silk blouses with padded shoulders. The Belk is slightly more modern looking, but what stands out is the outlandish copper-foil mall entrance sign and the very dated skinny escalators in an octagon court with tarnished brass and brown rubber railings. In the mall itself, the planters, fountains and brown tiles are long gone but yet the funkiness never quite left the place. It should be noted that the pictures are at the end of of a brand new renovation done this year. Nonetheless, many of the store signs in the mall still pay ode to the era.

Escalators in the mall take shoppers on the bottom level up to the upper level single story Sears wing.

Photos of the Belk inside and out. Note the extremely retro look both inside and outside the mall

More shots of the Rich's

Enjoy these pics of the disco mall. I'm sure many of you Athens fans and UGA grads have seen this place as well, so this should be a rather unique view of Georgia's own Athens.

Richway Early 80's TV Ads

I've waited quite awhile for these, but looking back you have to admit that pretty much any TV from the early 80's was pretty cheesy. Hope you enjoy!



Richway Back to School ad from Fall of 1982.



Is this Lake Lanier or Lake Allatoona? Remember, Richway was headquartered in the old Rich's building the whole time even after Federated bought them, so an ad featuring a local man at a local lake was not unlikely.

Also, maybe I'm imagining it, but I swear I recall a Richway ad from the late 1980's playing the intro part of Laura Branigan's "Gloria". Since using pop songs in ads is nothing unusual today, I wonder if my memory served me right. I was a little kid then. Thanks, J, for the heads up on these!

1983 Richway flyer and more

Here is a treat for what I found to be more than a few people sentimental about Richway. A contributor who chooses to be known only as "J" sent me scans of a flyer made in 1983 for Richway. The story is that he found this in an attic of his grandparents house along with a newspaper from that era. In all, they are very well preserved. Also, he included a low resolution scan of a postcard for the Atlanta Expo Center, which I have outside pics of. The Atlanta Expo Center, located on Jonesboro Road today fills what had been the Richway in addition to the Treasure Island/Home Depot locations mentioned in the previous "Treasure Island" post.


In these pics, I am largely including ones with the logo, but will include a couple others for amusement. You have to admit that times sure have changed since these pics.

I'm guessing Richway had a better selection of hardware than snob-appeal Target that took its place did. Nevertheless, I've heard both are very similar in many ways, though obviously Target is much less fun.


How about a $400 VCR? And this is in 1983 dollars, folks. Also take your pic at Urban Cowboy overkill for $6.99 on your choice of LP or cassette so you can go and replace them all with CD's ten years later just to download them illegally another 10 years later.


One thing you've got to admit: since the 80's the men's shorts have gotten longer and women's a lot shorter. Considering the big gay rights push since the late 80's, it is definitely no coincidence. It's a reaction that mirrored the disco backlash a couple years before this ad. Can you imagine most men being caught dead in most of this stuff today unless they were running on the cross country team?


Hey buddy, you want THAT much for a boom box that doesn't come with high speed dubbing? No way, man!


Nice moehair suit, fella. Imagine the days when you could be a hairy bastard and still be considered smoking hot? I wonder if that guy later joined the other silver hair dudes in a new Vette hoping to land a girl half his age.


Also provided here was this postcard of the Atlanta Expo Center featuring our most well-preserved Richway off of Jonesboro Road. Just don't go there at night.


Here is a close-up outside shot of the Richway on Jonesboro Road taken by yours truly. I understand this was the only Richway not to make it into a Target. That says a lot about that area, unfortunately.

Treasure Island

Treasure Island was a concept ahead of its time. Begun in the late 1960's, this JCPenney owned discount chain was basically the first supercenter concept ever created. Combining a discount and grocery store, this chain featured uniquely designed stores that were found in major cities across the U.S., but were known as "The Treasury" on the west coast. However, they were only successful in two cities: Atlanta and Cincinnati.

Georgia had four locations of Treasure Island stores, all located immediately off of I-285 except the first mentioned here, which was over a mile from Atlanta's perimeter highway. They were also located on major state highways in high traffic areas. These locations were at the intersection of U.S. 41 (Cobb Parkway) and Terrell Mill Road in Marietta, Buford Highway (GA 13) in Doraville, Memorial Drive (GA 10) near Decatur and Jonesboro Road (GA 54) in Forest Park.

The former location on Jonesboro Road in Forest Park is the most well-preserved location of a Treasure Island. You can also see the original painted over Home Depot sign in the background. The Home Depots were all on the left side of the original floorspace.

Consolidation of the discount store industry became fierce in the 1970's and 1980's following the massive failure of the W.T. Grant chain. This resulted in Treasure Island with its few massive stores having trouble competing with Kmart on steroids and the plethora of other discounters nationwide. Treasure Island was liquidated in 1981, and the vacancy of these stores created an opportunity for a brand new retail chain to emerge in Atlanta...Home Depot. Indeed, Home Depots very first locations were far smaller than today, taking up only a third of the former Treasure Island store space while Zayre initially moved in to take over the rest of the former retailer's floorspace.

The former location on Buford Highway is now a flea market.

In the late 1980's, Home Depot began building bigger and better stores while Zayre went bankrupt and was bought out by Ames. At that point, the Zayre locations were closed and Home Depot, now becoming a national chain, abandoned the original smaller stores. Given their location, these stores also faced decline of the area surrounding them. The most successful of these is the location in Marietta, which still has a Value City in the former Home Depot portion. The last major retailer in the Buford Highway location was an Office Depot, and now a large flea market covers much of the old floorspace. The other two locations are no longer retail with DeKalb County running offices out of the Memorial Drive location and the Atlanta Expo Center filling out the Jonesboro Road location. The Jonesboro Road location is unique in that it is completely unchanged from when it last functioned as a Zayre/Home Depot while the other locations were renovated and modified significantly.

Today, a concept like Treasure Island would be welcomed by many to reintroduce competition to a market completely dominated by only two discount chains, but its parent company JCPenney has mostly abandoned its other largely unsuccessful retail concepts. Its last, a collection of drug store chains including Eckerd, is now under different ownership while JCPenney focuses on its original department stores.

Farewell Parisian, Welcome Back Belk

Parisian had a good run in Atlanta, but as most of us have long noticed, never really caught on. It was a store that those in Birmingham loved, but it did not really belong in Atlanta. I remember distinctly when they first arrived in a huge wave, opening in 1993 across Atlanta. Raised on Rich's and Davison's/Macy's, it was interesting but I did not quite see the point except that it brought a more upscale store than Rich's, though Nordstrom eventually stole its thunder with superior stores and staff.

Photos of the now-closed Parisian at Hamilton Place Mall in Chattanooga. This store was an original anchor to the mall when it opened in 1986 and closed due to Belk already owning two stores in the mall. The top photo is of the closing Parisian at Northlake Mall.

While a nice store, most in Atlanta just saw Parisian as overpriced store with underwhelming sales staff. While higher end than Rich's, the store hardly held the niche of Nordstrom or the chic of Neiman Marcus, and Parisian played too much on the overinflated and eventually declining middle class in the early 1990's to establish itself. It was a Birmingham store that CEO Brad Hubbert intended to take national when it was virtually unknown outside of its home state...a risky venture indeed. With that, considering Georgians often condescending attitude towards anything out of Alabama, one wonders how anybody would have thought this would work.

Here are the two most prominent Birmingham locations at Riverchase Galleria, which opened in 1986 and The Summit, which opened in 1998. The former has a very strange stretched, angular design while the latter is one of three anchors of the nation's first "lifestyle center".

Nevertheless, Parisian has enjoyed an almost 15 year run in Atlanta with its initial foray at Town Center at Cobb, Gwinnett Place, Phipps Plaza and Northlake followed by newer locations at North Point (1997), Arbor Place (1998) and Stonecrest (2001). All were new locations except for North Point's, which opened in a former Mervyn's. Northlake's store was among the most bizarre. It was a skinny, elongated store that was squeezed into a spot near the Sears where a McCrory's once was located.

The Parisian at Town Center at Cobb mall in Kennesaw was the same design as all of the initial Parisian stores that opened in Atlanta in 1993.

The sale of Parisian finished off a blitz of department store mergers in the state that began in 2003 when Rich's was merged with Macy's, effectively eliminating most of the Davison's original locations and a couple years later, the Rich's name. The new owners, Belk, had no intentions of keeping a store that was only popular within its original market when the Belk name has been a staple of the South well-known beyond its North Carolina origins. Belk has not been kind to what remains of the chain, now closing three stores in the Atlanta area (North Point, Northlake and Stonecrest) and closing the store at Hamilton Place in Chattanooga in early 2007 where Belk already dominated a large part of the mall thanks to its previous buyout of Proffitt's.

The re-emergence of Belk in Atlanta is an interesting chapter. The locations of Belk in Georgia are second only to their home state of North Carolina. Belk has always been very prominent in the small towns across Georgia, predominantly under local partnerships that resulted in Belk Rhodes in West Georgia, Belk Matthews in central Georgia, Belk Beery in Savannah, Belk Hagins in Americus and possibly others. Atlanta's was known as Belk Gallant, and these stores were all across the area though they never made it to shopping malls. It has been said they were very unpopular at the time, and they completely left the Atlanta market during the 1960's. There really was not room for what was at the time a low-end chain when competing against the national Penney's and Sears, lower-end Kessler's and higher end Rich's and Davison's.

The Belk Matthews located at Macon Mall still retained its original signage in 2005. This store will be closing with Belk relocating into the former Parisian at the same mall

However, Belk was hardly forgetting the market they lost, because their dominance in the South is dramatic and also unique in that they stay exclusively south of the Mason-Dixon line. Belk is also the largest privately owned chain of department stores in the country with the Belk family still in control of the company, now covering most if not all of the South. Compare this to the Rich family which sold off their stores in 1975 with far fewer locations in only three states.

With the market consolidated down, Belk created a test store in the Mall of Georgia when they took over the closed Lord & Taylor location. Seeing that it was a success, when Parisian went up for sale they were more than glad to buy out the Atlanta collection of stores. This allowed Belk to bring A-class stores to Atlanta and to find a place in Atlanta's coveted malls. Already, they were in strip malls all across the area but had not been able to center on the prize. I can't say that outside Birmingham, Parisian will be sorely missed, but more than likely the reintroduction of Belk in Atlanta is welcomed by many: especially those that are very disappointed in the decline and demise of Rich's and Davison's into a subpar bastardized Macy's.