LaGrange Mall/West Georgia Commons Mall: LaGrange, GA

The fact that LaGrange even has a mall is fascinating in its own right. If not for a local college out of downtown, the LaGrange Mall would likely have never been constructed. The thing is, LaGrange is like many towns south of Atlanta in that it at the time it was built, it was quite far from other regional shopping centers. Because of that, it has a decent market to draw from ranging multiple counties in Georgia and Alabama. It is a small mall, and this smallness likely was reflected in the fact that LaGrange could never sustain a large shopping center like those in Atlanta or Columbus. Shannon Mall to the north, while small by Atlanta standards, dwarfs this mall. Peachtree Mall in Columbus is a monolith in comparison. Somehow, though, this mall remains modestly successful and was quite busy when I visited on a weekday!

Looking from the main entrance to center court. Sock Shoppe in the background was formerly Goody's. Note the standalone Chick-Fil-A

Built in 1979, the mall was situated to take advantage of recently completed I-85. I-85 was completed in the area in 1976. It is located on SR 109 east of the city, which has an interchange with I-85 and leads directly to downtown. Other retail is found on this road, but it is actually not the dominant retail center of the city. Most of the shopping is actually north of town on US 27, including Wal-Mart. Still, the mall is in a good position if the town ever grows larger.

The first photo is looking back at the main entrance from the first photo. The second takes another look back at center court from a different angle. The last is a view of the mall corridor approaching JCPenney.

The original tenants of LaGrange Mall were Belk, JCPenney and Columbus-based Kirven's. Belk is almost in common as Wal-Mart in rural Georgia, which has actually hurt their reputation in their attempt to expand into Atlanta proper. To my knowledge, this was never a hyphenated Belk, but a company store. It would have been a Belk Gallant, but the Gallant name disappeared by the end of the 1960's and all remaining Belk Gallant stores converted to company stores. The mall also had a Goody's prior to bankruptcy in 2009, which opened originally as Kirven's. However, the mall has quickly filled the former Goody's/Kirven's with a local store known as the "Sock Shoppe", a local clothing store that has apparently been in existance since 1934. It is nice to see that a local tenant happens to be one with a history instead of an upstart, and I wish the best of luck to Sock Shoppe.

Three angles of the Penney's mall entrance. The mirrors on top make the mall appear to go on further than it does. Note the 70's fake wood style on the second shot. The style there is identical to that used at the closed Century Plaza store. Third photo is full court. The last photo is looking back towards the main mall from the Penney's entrance.

The mall itself is actually one of the most drab malls I've been to. There is not too much appealing about it aside from the distinct period mall entrances to the anchors. What might have been appealing such as planters, sunken seating areas or fountains were removed and replaced with a flat surface covered in bluish carpet squares that looked rather loud and ugly with the pale yellow trim. The rest of the mall looks to have original flooring, but some modest renovations between the store entrances and ceiling, all completed in 2001. I am betting they were attempting to work with that flooring. The ceiling has mostly the drab tiles so popular in the era, but has some more distinct period lattice work and skylights. These are found in center court and in front of the two main department stores. Also, none of the mall is over one level: typical for mid-1970's small town malls. For those looking for cutting edge architecture and multiple levels and corridors to explore, keep driving to Atlanta. In all, I would have enjoyed the center more if they had retained all of its 1970's appearance.

Approaching Belk from the east mall then right in front of Belk. The shiny coppertone entrances were a very interesting style used in stores of this era. Note the similarities to Belk entrance at Georgia Square.

The first photo is leaving Belk court. The last is looking down the east mall, which is the remainder of the mall photographed back to center court.

Outside, the mall is not terribly inviting but not terribly ugly either. The mall entrance was, of course, upgraded recently but otherwise its your standard 70's fare. A vast parking lot sits in front of the mall with some parking in the back. There are no mall entrances in the rear, but there are entrances to Sock Shoppe and JCPenney. The Belk entrance is apparently sealed off in the back, but there is a peculiar employee entrance off to the left of it. In all, this makes it a mostly forward-facing mall.

Now, looking at the outside we see the main entrance to the mall, sign on SR 109 and overview shot of the mall (except Penney's).

LaGrange Mall's fortunes, however, might change for the dramatically better when the Kia plant is completed south of the city. This plant is expected to bring thousands of jobs and significant growth to the city. This will likely dramatically increase traffic at the mall. If the plant brings the promised growth, then quite possibly the mall would also expand or redevelop. There will very likely be new competition that could derail this, though. Much like Cookeville Mall in a previous post, a large power center would be enough to empty out and create cause to demall this mall. While adjacent city competition (such as Newnan) is not likely for a mall this size this far from the nearest mid-sized city, it will be very interesting to see if the future of this mall actually remains as an enclosed shopping center.

Outside entrances to Penney's and former Goody's, now Sock Shoppe. The Penney's entrance is on the north side of the mall. Note its very stark modernist design.

Belk east entrance and detail of the replica south entrance. This Belk entrance is definitely in the post-arch era.

Overall, these mini-malls are still found in a few of the more remote parts of the state, and LaGrange Mall has bragging rights in that it has retained both of its original anchors and appears to have been quite successful for around 30 years. However, it is a bit of a disappointment in comparison with the absolutely beautiful downtown it replaced, and it is showing its age. Regardless, while this is not the best or nicest small mall I've seen, I still want to recognize and admire its continued success for its size and market and hope it is still here 10 years from now.

From 2008: Story of Belk's Growth

An article I found from 2008 describes much of the Belk story today. Detailed are the acquisitions of Proffitt's, much beloved in East Tennessee and Parisian, Birmingham's own version of Nordstrom. There is no doubt about it that Atlanta got "Belked" since Rich's fell by the wayside 4 1/2 years ago. Amazingly, it is actually the largest market for the company considering that it is headquartered in Charlotte. Nevertheless, it is not the first time Belk has come to the market, nor is it the first time they've felt the nasty bite of the fickle Atlanta market. It's poorly planned North Point Mall store closing is sure proof that they still do not understand the market well enough, and they paid the price for not giving the store a more upscale offering. Perhaps if they had kept the more attractive and smaller Parisian they would have done much better, but that's hardly a criticism of the whole company, which is the last and most successful privately-owned department store in the history of the nation.

Photo from Atlanta Time Machine of the Belk Gallant store in Buckhead in 1954. It took over 30-40 years for Belk to return to Buckhead, and today it is the Georgia flagship located in Phipps Plaza.

When Belk was last in Atlanta, Belk was under a partnership known as Belk Gallant. Located across the city and extending as far south as LaGrange and as far north as Dalton, it was the dominant Belk merchant in the city up until the 1970's. The backlash back then against what was viewed then as shoddy merchandise led to the complete pulling out of the core Atlanta market, dissolution of the Belk Gallant company and the changeover of remaining stores to Belk corporate: perhaps the only corporate Belk stores prior to 1998. However, most of the outlying Belk stores remained. References can still be found in web archives of much legal trouble that Belk Gallant faced years ago.

Belk Rhodes logo taken from a 1975 ad in the Rome News-Tribune.

Outside of Atlanta, other families dominated the Belk market. In most of South Georgia, Belk Matthews dominated. In Americus, it was Belk Hagin. In Savannah, it was Belk Beery. In Rome, Cedartown and Carrollton it was Belk Rhodes. All but Belk Matthews disappeared after 1998. Belk Matthews was still very much in existance as late as 2005, and is rumored to remain today at the Houston County Galleria. Belk Rhodes, however is long gone.

Today, much larger and streamlined Belk is pretty much dominating department store retailing in Georgia and seems to be poised as being the dark horse that is slowly dominating the department store industry in the South. Macy's is groaning under the weight of trying to be the Wal-Mart of department stores with locations equivalent to Kmart by modern retail standards. Dillard's is ailing in its own attempts to be like Belk, but target a more upscale demographic. This leaves America's very last family-owned department store in a very good position if the economic situation does not wreck them all. If alive today, Mr. Rich would indeed be envious.

Walnut Square Mall: Dalton, GA

Five years after Riverbend Mall became the first mall in Northwest Georgia, Walnut Square opened on July 23, 1980 (from Wikipedia) bringing Dalton its first and only enclosed mall. Prior to the construction of Walnut Square, most business was in or near downtown. Bry-Man's Plaza was the major strip mall for the city located within a few blocks of the major downtown department stores. Walnut Square is in a rather odd location. It is nowhere near I-75, basically east of downtown on Walnut Ave (SR 52). It is not located near the intersection of any other highways, but is within a couple miles of the east by-pass, completed almost 20 years after the mall first opened. With that, the Dalton By-Pass (US 41) has no positive impact on the mall. In all, this suggests that Walnut Square is largely a local affair not meant to attract customers outside of its original buying area. However, the most likely reason for its location probably relates to the mountainous terrain near I-75 where building a large shopping mall would have been difficult and costly.

Four photos of the main concourse. The third is in front of the Belk Home & Kids (former Loveman's) and the last is in front of Penney's

Walnut Square is one of the few remaining malls to have been little modified since it opened. While there have been some changes of anchors, the overall mall concourse still features the original terrazzo floors, original overall design and original store fronts on long-time businesses: definitely NOT a bad thing in a successful mall in otherwise good repair. In fact, the only place in the mall that has been updated is the flooring in the court areas and the mall entrances outside, which strongly resemble those at Georgia Square (CBL owns both malls). Despite all of this, the mall is still successful even with a desperately ailing local economy.

Northeast entrance and just inside the northeast entrance.

Dalton, the carpet capital of the world, is struggling with a declining housing market; vastly reduced demand for carpet; gasping industrial sector and an overall bad economy. The result is Dalton having the highest unemployment rate in the state and one of the highest in the country at the moment. With that, a few store vacancies vs. a dead mall is impressive and I was glad to see it was not in worse shape since my previous visit in 2006.

Note the original signage here. The chinese restaurant on the right still has diagonal wood treatment and is obviously original. In the background is an original Sbarro sign not seen anywhere else. Mall owners, please do not ever change these signs!

The CVS pharmacy here was originally a Revco. Note that the CVS has its very own entrance, allowing the store to operate outside of regular mall hours.

A few malls still have the classic Foot Locker sign with the diagonal wood trim. Walnut Square is one of those.

When Walnut Square opened, it had anchors Belk, Sears and Loveman's along with a movie theater. According to Wikipedia, JCPenney moved to a new store in the mall later in 1981 and Goody's came along in 1990. The last now leaves a vacancy in the rear of the mall since Goody's went bankrupt in 2009. Loveman's of Chattanooga was acquired by Proffitt's in 1986 before becoming a second Belk store when Belk bought up the entire Proffitt's chain in 2006. Also, the movie theater left the mall in 2007 or 2008 and now resides in the back of the mall on an outlot. The first Belk store was a continuation of defunct Belk Gallant, which was once downtown along with Loveman's, Sears and JCPenney.

All the mall entrances, except Goody's including Belk, Penney's, Loveman's and Sears. The Penney's was the most original store in the mall. It even has the original brown carpet from 1980 before it came back into style again. A photo of the sealed Goody's mall entrance and Sbarro will be done in another trip soon.

Recently, a planned lifestyle center looked to pose a threat to Walnut Square. With most of the trade area around I-75, it is not surprising that such a proposal would be introduced, so with that, the economy may actually be helping the mall. Since this will likely not happen now for awhile, Walnut Square remains successful in its position as one of the outpost shopping malls of Chattanooga and as Dalton's very own major shopping mall.

Loveman's today and Loveman's in 2005 as Proffitt's. This is the only photo I have of the store as a Proffitt's.

Outside photos of Goody's, Penney's, Sears and Belk

Outside entrance to now-closed McDonald's. A labelscar is visible for it as well as Goody's. The McDonald's is now a pet store, but it still has the same floor as McDonald's. Walnut Square never had a food court. All restaurants are scattered through the mall as was once common.