Mount Berry Square: Rome, GA

A previous post I made detailed Riverbend Mall, the predecessor to Mount Berry Square. From that post, I basically detailed how Mount Berry Square was directly responsible for the death of that mall when this mall opened in 1991. Built by Crown America, then owner of Hess's, this mall today is a troubled mall in a very odd location. Mount Berry Square is named as such for Berry College close the mall and Lavender Mountain to the north and west, thus the "Mount". Mount Berry Square was isolated when it was built, and today remains just as isolated. Basically, it is located about 2-3 miles north of Rome beyond Berry College near Armuchee and is located a considerable distance north of the by-pass. Shoppers must drive past the college campus to get to the mall. In fact, chain retail stores are few in number around the mall, and what stores are there are all located on outlots of the mall. While it maintains three major department store anchors, it was a poorly conceived and poorly planned mall that has never been completely successful, though it has maintained an A-list tenant roster since it is today the only mall in the city.

When Mount Berry Square opened, its anchor stores were Hess's, Belk Rhodes, JCPenney and Sears. JCPenney jumped ship from Riverbend Mall the minute this mall opened, but both Belk Rhodes and Hess's maintained stores at both malls for a time since their leases had not yet expired at Riverbend. This was problematic for the new mall as stores at Riverbend did not leave right away, meaning the mall was mostly empty when it opened aside from the anchors. However, it was not lost on the stores still at Riverbend that the mall was looking old, cramped, dated and had a history of costly, unpleasant things such as floods. The problem was that stores in Riverbend did not all go to Mount Berry Square by default. A few remained until the end and many others relocated to nearby strip malls or standalone locations in lieu of Mount Berry. As a result, Mount Berry never completely filled up. To say the mall is on death watch is a bit ironic since the mall has never been a really big hit. Maybe the mall is just too big.

Looking at the inside of the mall entrance on the Belk wing.

A look along the Belk wing of the mall. The mall is typical early 90's fare with a mostly whitewashed looks and a few well-placed plants and trees. They really went on the cheap with skylights, though. The Belk wing has always struggled and had few tenants even during its peak years.

After the Rhodes sign was removed off of Belk Rhodes, the facade was left with many holes. Nevertheless, from a distance the sign looks decent, and at least it was centered properly.

JCPenney has a mall entrance on the Belk wing, but not the ONLY mall entrance. The other comes off the front court across from the former Proffitt's.

 

Looking back into the mall from the JCPenney mall entrance.

In 1992, Mount Berry saw its first anchor change as Hess's was sold to Proffitt's. Proffitt's, however, was not at all interested in the old Riverbend location forcing Bon-Ton, which purchased Hess's northern division to take over the remainder of the lease at that store. Later in the 1990's, Toys 'R' Us and Circuit City both found homes on the available outlots. A couple other restaurants are found on outlots, but not of the variety of usual malls such as Applebee's, Red Lobster and Chili's: all of which are found near, you guessed it, old Riverbend Mall. The next anchor change came in 1998 when Belk Rhodes dropped the Rhodes family partnership to become a company Belk store. The 1990's were the peak success of the mall, though it can never truly be said it was raging. The part of the mall near Belk has many stores that were never occupied.

A look along the Sears wing, which looked way emptier than the last time I visited. 

This Sears store anchors the north end, and is relatively successful. Much of the mall business was found on this end until recently. This store moved from a free-standing location south of downtown when the mall opened.

Toward the center of the mall, the mall appears to have the most life.  Here, an American Eagle joins several other A-class tenants situated mostly between the Penney's and former Proffitt's in the main mall corridor.  The former Proffitt's entrance is to the right.

Proffitt's former entrance comes off the Sears wing, but like JCPenney it also has a mall entrance in the front court. This store also operated briefly as Hess's and at the last as a short-lived second Belk store.

Similar to Bradley Square Mall, Mount Berry had a quirky design. Both Proffitt's and JCPenney were built with two mall entrances accessable both from the main mall and the front entrance wing. The mall was typical 90's in design with light tones and very shiny faux marble floor tiles. The center court has a large fountain with muted planters, and a carousel forms the center of the front court. The mall also has a built-in food court, which is only about 50 percent full. The mall also contains a few other planters with trees, which were last common in malls built in the early 90's. No part of the mall has two levels, not even the anchors. In all it is a pretty standard mall for the time it was built, and the major advantage it held over Riverbend was size, a contemporary design and...no risk of flooding. Few other building sites in Rome proper are not at risk of a devastating flood, and the entire downtown sits directly in the flood plain.

The mall map is shown here.  Note the dual entrances for the former Proffitt's and JCPenney.  The mall is a pretty straightforward design, and definitely offered much more in terms of space and anchors to Riverbend.  The problem is, much of this space is not being used, and the mall today has the same amount of anchors of its predecessor in the early 1990's.

This mall, unlike Riverbend, is very front facing. There is absolutely nothing behind the mall. It is very much oriented facing US 27, yet there are still back entrances and ample parking behind the mall. After the 1990's, the mall pretty much was holding its own until 2006 when Proffitt's was sold to Belk. Belk suddenly had two stores at the mall: the last time two Belk stores operated in Rome since the Riverbend overlap. Apparently, the lack of sales and traffic in the mall drove Belk to quickly abandon this arrangement, closing its second store in 2008. Now, the mall faces a vacant anchor with few potential tenants and a bad economy. In fact, the mall has very recently actually seen a decline in inline stores: especially on the Sears wing. In addition, Circuit City closed their location at the mall with the rest of the chain.

Looking along the front entrance wing toward the center court and food court.

Now I'm looking toward the front court and carousel. It seems carousels were as essential in 90's malls as fountains in 80's malls.

A full shot of the carousel.

The carousel with the front court Penney's entrance on the right.

Next to the former Proffitt's is this very hopeful banner on an empty storefront asking local citizens what they would like to see at the mall. Their heart is in the right place, and I hope it works. A junior Dillard's would be nice in the old Proffitt's and Best Buy in the old Circuit City.

To the left of the closed Proffitt's front court entrance is this abandoned restaurant. It is impossible to tell what this was, and it looks to have been closed for quite awhile.

The empty front court Proffitt's entrance. Very depressing indeed. This store was open, alive and assumed well only three years prior before the buyout.

Today, Mount Berry has an uncertain future. Now 18 years old and on a national list of malls in danger of failure, the mall has much working against it and not enough for it. The only reason it has survived this long is due to the lack of any other legitimate mall options in the city. If anything resembling a mall or lifestyle center with department store anchors opened closer to the city, the chances of survival would be dismal. As it is, the mall has had difficulties due to the redevelopment of Riverbend Mall. While the old mall is today a strip center, it features many tenants normally found in or around malls. In addition, the majority of retail in Rome remains situated near Riverbend Mall. The fact that the big box stores have never moved closer to Mount Berry has always hurt the mall. In all, it seems to have been built assuming the retail chains would all move closer to embrace it. That just did not happen. The bright side is that at present no new major shopping centers have been planned in the area.

Center court is open, airy, lush and features this basic but attractive fountain.

The reality of the mall having to redevelop partially or completely in the future is quite high. This is not lost on the mall as they have placed a large banner and comment card offering the public suggestions of what they would like to see in the mall. The reality is that Rome does not have a strong economy on its own, and many people commute to Atlanta for work. If this was not the case, the mall would be in better shape. Mount Berry is not located in an area that takes advantage of that. In fact, what keeps the mall alive for the most part is the fact the city has three colleges, and much of their business comes from high school and college-age students. This is why what is in business in the mall tends to be A-list, and youth is the most important demographic in higher end retail.

The food court in the mall has always struggled with vacancies, and opened basically empty.  Today, it features a few restaurants that fill about 40-50% of the possible tenants.  This food court is just too far from most of the core market lunch crowd.

Mount Berry in the future will go one of three ways. It will either maintain status quo for several more years to come, the mall will see a renaissance due to a renovation and interest in the currently vacant stores or it will succumb to competition that does not currently exist. Of course, there is also the possibility the mall may just die with no close competition, but if so that would be a symptom of a greater problem (such as a complete economic collapse). Any way you look at it, I have cause to be concerned about the future of this mall. While I think it is a decent and relatively attractive mall, I think it is in dire need of renovation and I think it does not adequately serve the needs of the area. Maybe I am wrong, but this mall is not in a favorable position.

Shown here are exterior shots of the smaller mall entrance into the Belk Rhodes wing and the main sign on US 27. Note that there is not much in the way of retail development across the street.

Here is a look at the outside of the lost anchor, Proffitt's.  How I wish I had gotten a mall entrance photo!

Here is a look at all the anchors today fron the outside. A previous shot of the Proffitt's was included on my Proffitt's post.  The door to the former Proffitt's still says "Welcome to Proffitt's" despite being a second Belk briefly.

Riverbend Mall: Rome, GA

Arial view of the mall in its final days.

It was Northwest Georgia's first shopping mall, and now it is merely a memory. Faced with nothing more than limestone brick and a simple, yet classy 70's modernist exterior, Riverbend Mall opened to the public on September 18, 1975. Original anchor tenants included Belk Rhodes, Miller's of Knoxville, Lay's Variety Store of Cleveland, TN and Morrison's Cafeteria. Most of the stores in the mall, however, were local merchants, most of whom had also previously operated downtown, and it took over a year to completely fill the mall. Morrison's Cafeteria, one of the first, opened at the mall almost a month after the mall did. Costing $10 million in 1975 dollars, the mall was one story, rather small at 330,000 square feet and was typical of the era with a very dark interior including dark brown floor tiles, a dark brown lattice ceiling and the only light in the mall coming from the shops. It was also a basic I-shaped design.


Riverbend was unique in that it was built by a small, local developer in lieu of a large conglomerate. The local Ledbetter family built the mall, and it was designed by architectural firm Stevens & Wilkinson. Stevens & Wilkinson are best known in Georgia for designing all of the Rich's and Richway stores. The mall was built across the street from East Rome High School in what was at the time a largely undeveloped area near the end of a short freeway that formed part of the Rome Connector (U.S. 27 and S.R. 53).

A collection of logos from the original mall. Two Miller's logos are shown here. The second is from after the Allied acquisition. The Lay's logo is original from 1975.

Riverbend Mall was in a strange geographic location, yet very highly visible, where it rested in the 100 year floodplain of the Etowah River wedged on a rather narrow strip of land between Turner McCall Blvd. (U.S. 27) and the river, divided from the river by Riverbend Drive. The original developer owned most of the land around the mall, and the mall was located at the end of a major expressway with high visibility. However, most of the retail development was actually closer to the Garden Lakes area northwest of the city due to the more abundant buildable land outside of the natural floodplain.

This photo of Belk Rhodes from the Rome News-Tribune was one of several taken for the mall's 10th anniversary on September 17, 1985.

Another shot of the exterior taken for the mall's 10th anniversary on September 17, 1985.

Rome was neither an extremely large nor extremely fast growing city. The location was just right, and not surprisingly, the mall was a raging success. Unfortunately, however, it resulted in the continued decline of downtown Rome. While that was not the intention of the Ledbetter's, the mall was built very close to downtown in a time when downtown was not exactly in vogue. Belk Rhodes, which had operated downtown since 1936, moved to the mall when it opened and closed the downtown store in early 1976. Like most Belk stores of the era, local residents Thelma and Cecil Rhodes ran the stores selling Belk merchandise with the Belk family sharing expenses, so the decision to move was that of the Rhodes family and not of the Belk company at that point. Sears oddly did not anchor the mall, however, but was located on the opposite end of Riverbend Drive as an existing free-standing store. That Sears building still exists today, but the Sears moved from there in 1991 to Mount Berry Square.

Interior shot of the mall taken for the only renovation. Photo by Angela Turner for the Rome News-Tribune from March 20, 1989.

In the first 15 years, the mall saw a few changes. A movie theater was added to the mall next to Miller's in 1979. Of course, 1979 was also the year of the first of two major floods in Rome that affected the mall. According to a Rome News-Tribune article from September 17, 1985, the flood of 1979 put three feet of water in the mall for six hours. Nevertheless, the flood did not affect the mall businesswise at that point in a city accustomed to flooding problems. The mall just got cleaned up and everything got back to business.

Belk ad from the mall's 10th anniversary. Note the mall logo and no mention of "Belk Rhodes". Only the 1975 ads showed the full name.

The next event to happen at the mall came in late 1985 when junior mall anchor Lay's Variety Store liquidated along with its 20 other locations. JCPenney later filled the location in April 1987, moving from its location downtown. Also in 1987, Miller's parent company Allied Stores, was bought out by Hess's of Allentown, PA. This move resulted in the rebranding of the store as Hess's. In early 1989, the mall underwent an extensive interior renovation. New skylights were added to brighten up the previously cavernous mall, floor tiles were replaced, two hand-made Italian fountains were installed and a new food court was added known as "Food Fair", connecting where a previous rear entrance had existed. The new food court was elevated higher than the rest of the mall out of the flood plain, likely to keep at least some of the mall from re-living the 1979 flood event. It also brought Rome its first Chick-Fil-A. This food court expanded the mall by another 19,000 square feet.

Arial view of the mall with the new food court along with a couple shots of the newly completed Food Fair. Photo by Angela Turner for the Rome News-Tribune from March 20, 1989.

Unfortunately, the rest of the mall was not prepared for the next event and it came only a year later. In early 1990, North Georgia was dealing with its worst flooding in years. In both January and March of that year, the mall was severely flooded damaging stores and damaging the reputation of the mall as well. The Ledbetters took a gamble building the mall in a major flood plain. Unfortunately, they did this because the town itself was always flood prone and had no real ordinances about this. If the mall had somehow been built elevated or the ground under it elevated over the flood plain, perhaps it would still be here today. While the mall mopped up and replaced carpets for continued operation into 1991, the flooding pretty much dashed long-term hopes for the future. A new mall was opening north of the city near Berry College. It would be larger, newer, on high ground and was being developed by the then new owners of Hess's department store, Crown America.

View of mall prior to the first renovation. Notice the Belk Rhodes sign in the background. These photos were from the Rome News-Tribune for the September 18, 1985 10th anniversary.

When Mount Berry Square opened in 1991 and was hardly a replacement for Riverbend. Isolated far from all other development, it seemed that Riverbend could have survived. The problem was, the anchors did not see the merit in remaining in an a small, aging mall where they might be flooded again. Belk Rhodes had promised in 1990 to keep two locations, but this was only a half-kept promise. JCPenney did not hesitate to leave the mall, but Hess's was in a lease at the mall into the late 1990's, so it stayed along with Belk Rhodes.

Grainy photo of the original construction of the mall from 1975 (Rome News-Tribune).

1993 was the beginning of the end for Riverbend. The new mall was having a very real effect on Riverbend by this time. Belk Rhodes hung on a couple years before replacing the Riverbend store with an outlet in late 1993. Also, early in the year Hess's was sold off in pieces with the northern division going to Bon-Ton and the southern stores mostly to Proffitt's...except one. Yes, a Bon-Ton found its way into the old Hess's at the mall. This was the ONLY Bon-Ton store in the entire chain to be located in Georgia, and it was indeed looked like an afterthought from the day it opened. Indeed, the store opening there was due to Proffitt's lack of interest in the location, but most likely due to the lease requirements.

Over the next several years the once successful mall began to empty out. Unfortunately, the only real reason that Belk Rhodes and Hess's/Bon-Ton were even there was that they were bound to their leases. While the renovation helped to keep a two-mall scenario in a town with less than 150,000, the mall itself was in the midst of a mass exodus that left only a couple store in operation after 2000. In 1995, the Belk Rhodes outlet closed at the mall when their lease expired. In 1998, Bon-Ton also left the mall once their lease also expired. The store was a financial strain on the company with a location extremely far from its home base.

In 1998, the owners considered options of what to do with the empty mall. A medical mall idea was proposed, and Coosa Medical Group then opened in half of the old Belk Rhodes. Morrison's Cafeteria was one of the last tenants there, and left the mall that year for a free-standing location. CVS pharmacy, located in the former Revco, also hung on to the end. CVS had an outside entrance in front of the mall, so they were not dependent on a mall with no traffic for business. The former JCPenney also saw continued life as Heilig-Meyers furniture, which eventually failed with the entire chain by 2000. Ford's Furniture replaced Bon-Ton, and it remained at the mall until it was closed for demolition. By 2002, the 27 year old mall was sent to the retail graveyard.

Demolition began in 2002 of the mall, by then a sad sight. The mall without any real anchors or interest looked bland and forelorn. In its place is a bustling strip center that oddly carries much of the same tenants that could have been modern tenants in the mall. Oddly enough, though, the ghost of Riverbend lives on as Coosa Medical Group refused to give up their offices in the back half of the Belk Rhodes. As a result, that one part of the mall was allowed to remain. It is all particularly strange to me, because this is the exact way we entered the mall years ago. It is also strange to see a strip mall there today that draws crowds like Riverbend once did...and built by none other than the original developers of Riverbend Mall.

Photo from late 2002 of front view of Belk Rhodes at Riverbend Mall during demolition. A Kroger now stands at this site above the flood plain.

Today, Riverbend's replacement is as successful as the mall the day it opened in 1975. Likewise, the city itself that Riverbend replaced has revived. Meanwhile, the mall that replaced it, Mount Berry Square, is struggling. Today, simply "Riverbend" features a Kroger, Barnes and Noble, Ross Dress for Less, Pier 1 Imports and mall tenants such as Hibbett's Sports and others. The "brown mall" lives on: just not as a mall.

Note: Rome News-Tribune archives were used for much of the information and all but one of the photos provided here.

Note: original post dated February 21, 2007.

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.