The Last Super Kmart in Georgia

Kmart these days has a lot in common with a former discounter that is slowly being forgotten: Zayre. Like Zayre, Kmart was once a leading retailer covering large areas of the country (actually all for Kmart) that fell under poor management and began to decline. Like Zayre, it earned a reputation for being poorly stocked and having a poor selection. Like Zayre, it has earned a reputation as low-class or basically a ghetto store. What is left to be answered is will it disappear in 2008 like Zayre did 20 years earlier in 1988? While Zayre lived on awhile as Ames, it was the big lead weight that eventually sunk everything it landed on...in its case the entire Ames chain. Kmart and Zayre indeed have a lot in common, and time will tell if Kmart sinks Sears the way that Zayre sunk Ames.


What Zayre did not have was supercenters. They did not exist when Zayre was around, but Kmart still has a few. In fact, there is only one left in the entire state of Georgia: Rome. I still have a receipt from the Gainesville location during its going out of business sale back in 2003, so it is a treat to see that one remains. Indeed, the Super Kmart in Rome exists as an anomoly and possibly a prototype in a town where it must compete with two Wal-Mart supercenters. The only ace it does have...Target so far has not shown any interest in this small city in Northwest Georgia. The nearest bullseye is in Cartersville over 20 miles away.


While the Super Kmart in Rome is quite nice, it definitely tends to serve a more diverse clientele than many Romans would prefer to mingle with. It was not always that way, but it did not help when Supercenter #2 opened down on U.S. 411. While the Super Kmart is still in the commerce center of the city, it has a tough time competing. For me, I'm just glad it's there to offer an alternative. It is actually a very clean and nice store inside with quite attractive decor and a decent selection for Kmart. In fact, it is not unlikely this will end up being one of the first Sears Grand stores in Georgia. The Super Kmart also has a service station called K Express in front of the store, and I have fueled up there many times trying to take the edge off of the soaring gas prices.


Just as additional information, the Super Kmart is oddly located right across from what was once Rome's major mall: Riverbend Mall on the site of East Rome High School, which was demolished in the early 1990's for the store.

Photos featured here include Super Kmart in 2006 with its new orange and green theme, photo in 2005 with more Wal-Mart like colors, fading sign on Turner McCall Blvd. (U.S. 27) with a Kroger sign beneath. The Kroger has since moved across the street into the redeveloped Riverbend Mall, now a strip center. The last photo is of the K Express service station in front of the store.

Ansley Mall: Atlanta, GA

Traveling over Georgia, I had honestly believed there were no open-air malls left from the 60's and 70's. I was wrong. Nestled in the Morningside area near Midtown was one of the best preserved specimens of an open-air mall: Ansley Mall. Built in 1968, it is not a mall in the sense of what you typically would call a mall. This little open-air mall features maybe 25 tenants and a Publix grocery store. The Publix was not original to the mall and was built on the site of what had been originally a Big Star. Other major tenants at the mall include CVS Pharmacy (probably a former Revco), Piccadilly Cafeteria (previously Morrison's Cafeteria, next to the Publix), Moe's Southwest Grill, L.A. Fitness (formerly Woolworth's) and a Pet Supermarket. Many of the tenants at the mall have entrances both to the main parking lot and to the mall itself.



When I first saw Ansley Mall on the map, I thought it was just a glorified name for a strip. Au contraire, it is definitely a mall and quite attractive though gaudy with its 80's-style reddish decor. This mall would probably also not be well-known outside of the area beyond those that shop there. I had heard of it, but never knew where it was or what was in it previously. What I do know of Ansley Mall is that it is located at the heart of the gay community in Atlanta, which is a major reason this mall did not fall on hard times like its sister mall near Lakewood.


Regarding its sister mall, this twin known by several names is located off of what was then Stewart Avenue (now Metropolitan Parkway) near Hapeville and is feature in a later post. Unlike Ansley Mall that caters to a slightly upper class crowd, the other mall fell on hard times and is partly vacant with much of the abandoned portion destroyed by a fire several years ago.


Photos include main entryway, part of the mall, lush vegitation at opposite end of mall next to the Piccadilly (pictured on the right), more of the mall with a Moe's Southwest Grill sign overhead and a view of the center court (click on the image for larger size).

Proffitt's

Before becoming Belk, Proffitt's had a good run in Georgia even though it was a department store mostly associated with eastern Tennessee. In Georgia, it pretty much lasted here from 1992 until Belk bought it out in 2005. How it came into Georgia pretty much came as a result of several consolidations.


Proffitt's existed in Georgia in two locations: Dalton and Rome. At both of those locations, Belk was already there as well. In regards to Belk in Rome, it was known as Belk Rhodes while in Dalton it was possibly originally Parks-Belk. Proffitt's, however, had started out as two different stores for each town. In Rome, it was the only Georgia location of the Miller's (Miller Bros.) Department Store, which was centered in Knoxville. In Dalton, it was the Chattanooga-based Loveman's (not to be confused with Loveman's of Alabama).

Proffitt's came first to Dalton in 1988 when the small Loveman's chain was purchased by the expanding Proffitt's, which originated in downtown Maryville, TN. The expansion of Proffitt's was a rather strange phenomenon considerings its origins as a small town department store south of Knoxville. The notion of how it came to trump Miller's was rather strange, but Miller's itself was bought out two years earlier by Pennsylvania-based Hess's.

For a few years, you had Hess's in Rome and Proffitt's in Dalton. Hess's moved from the flood-prone Riverbend Mall to the shiny new Mt. Berry Square in 1991 and only a couple months later it became Proffitt's. That's how there became two locations. Proffitt's by then had gone expansion crazy and had locations in about seven states and bought out Saks Fifth Avenue and McRae's in Alabama. The expansion did not go over well in many areas and the chain began hurting and retracted back in those places.

By 2005, Proffitt's sold out to Belk because of the decline of the chain. Belk was a good fit for all these stores and the small size of most locations made the Belk conversion easy since they could simply expand their departments in two buildings in the same mall. Belk also gained much greater prominence in Tennessee and Alabama, where they had previously had a very limited presence.

Photos include the Proffitt's at Mt. Berry Square Mall in Rome (now Belk Home and Kids) and the Proffitt's at Bradley Square Mall in Cleveland, TN (now Belk).

Columbia/Avondale Mall: Decatur, GA

Georgia Retail Memories was the second site to bring you detailed online information about the then-abandoned Columbia Mall, known in later years as Avondale Mall as well as a few interesting pics not available previously. After my post, a few other people took pics after I did. One person actually managed to get inside to get a few angles I couldn't. Perhaps I should have tipped the security guard that day to get an "inside" tour that had been free only a couple years before I got those pics. "Discovered" abandoned malls tend to become viral on the web these days.


A short version of the history of that center was that the mall was opened in 1964 soon after its anchors were opened. Story is that the anchors were built with just an open area of dirt inbetween which was later filled by the one-story center with only one entrance. The original anchors to the mall were Davison's and Sears and it was the first enclosed mall in Georgia. General decline of the area enhanced by white flight and competition from other malls killed the center and it started faltering in the late 1970's. Sears first left in 1984 with the store serving as a Sears Budget Store for a short while after. Davison's also operated a clearance center in the mall in that time.

In 1985, Columbia Mall was renovated. Following this, the mall was given its new name it would have the remainder of its life: Avondale Mall. Unfortunately, the renovation did absolutely nothing to save the mall. The problem with Columbia Mall was not as much the neighborhood as it was just too close to the other malls and too far from the interstates. Columbia had never fully recovered from the opening of Northlake Mall, and Rich's across the street left Belvedere Plaza on January 15th of the following year as the neighborhood declined just enough to remove justification of having three Rich's stores that close together. Later on, Davison's closed there as a Macy's Clearance store in early 1992. By that time, the mall struggled, reinvented itself and languished until it finally died quietly in December 2001.


With no anchors, the mall struggled the best it could. A 16 screen movie theater was added into the old Davison's. The mall itself was expanded into the old Sears, including a short-lived Goody's. The mall's outside entrances of all of its front facing stores kept the mall viable as a semi-strip mall until the end. Then it sat vacant: until Wal-Mart was interested in the site. Wal-Mart had bought and planned demolition as early as 2004, but the project was delayed due to community opposition being planned on the site of the mall. Local residents saw better uses for the place then another smiley-faced monstrocity that in time would leave something much more unsightly vacant than an empty mall standing as a curious monument to 1960's architecture combined with some 90's uglification.

In spring of 2007, Columbia/Avondale Mall was torn apart with cranes and wrecking balls to be replaced with a forgettable box. County leaders hailed the project as a success, because no community wants to be stuck with a rotting, abandoned mall. While the Wal-Mart was good for the short term revitalization efforts of the area, a discount store is hardly a realistic tool for neighborhood revitalization. Nevertheless, the store was badly needed as the neighborhood had a huge shortage of discount stores as well as other retail. It is hoped that at least the store will have a positive effect on Belvedere Plaza.



The photos here feature the inside of the main mall entrance, Avondale Cinema sign (which opened in the old Davison's), looking inside the old Sears (part of the mall later), overall view with Davison's in the background and lastly the old Sears.

Davison's

Atlanta had two big department stores: Rich's and Davison's. Atlanta also had Kessler's, Muse's, Regenstein's and Allen's, but these were the big two and most remembered. Rich's was the reverenced store while Davison's played second fiddle, though ultimately they sold basically the same merchandise. Still, at the time it was pretty unmistakable which was the better store, and owner R.H. Macy, Co., which had bought out the much smaller Davison-Paxon-Stokes Co. in 1925 decided 60 years later in 1985 that the local division of Macy's for Atlanta was no longer worth keeping local.


Davison's was actually more expansive than Rich's in Georgia with not only the big downtown store on Peachtree Street, but also downtown stores in Athens, Columbus, Macon and Augusta during its 60 years. Davison's, however, was much slower than Rich's to hit the suburbs across Atlanta.


Being tied to Macy's, Davison's had two logos. The more famous of these was the blue all-caps logo that was used prominently through the 1960's and 1970's during suburban expansion. That logo was changed in 1980 to match the Macy's in logo in font as evidenced by ads on this page. An interesting note is that during the 1970's, Rich's had its memorable green sign while Davison's had its blue sign.

Davison's today serves as an interesting reminder of the insanity of department store consolidations. Davison's was owned by Macy's, but merged into Macy's along with sister chains Bamberger's, La Salle's and Taylor in 1985 and was called Davison's/Macy's in 1985 into 1986 before being simply Macy's. Eighteen years later, through buyouts, Macy's came to finally kill off the beast that made life so hard for them in Atlanta: Rich's. Like the ultimate insult to the once grand chain, Rich's became Rich's-Macy's and finally just Macy's in early 2005. As a result, both of Atlanta's once grand old department stores are now just dull Macy's stores in name only anchoring all of the malls in Atlanta.

Ingles

Ingles: the Asheville chain that still provides us a halfway local option for grocery stores in the Atlanta area...and a hell of a lot better prices than Kroger or Publix. Big Star, Winn-Dixie, A&P, Food Giant and Cub Foods are all long since history around here, but one survives: the chain that owns that little mountain town we Atlanta folks love to go to when the air gets crisp and the leaves are pretty.



One thing that I love and is a big part of my childhood memories are those very outlandish stores that they built in the 80's. It was 1985 that Ingles made its big entry into Georgia with its stores that looked straight out of an episode of The Price Is Right. Likewise, they were just as funky on the inside. To me, these actually seemed down home and quite cozy, and they always represented for me a trip to the hills because we stopped at one on the way up. Nearly every small town in North Georgia still has them, and these usually were originally anchored by a Wal-Mart, Sky City or Rose's (more rarely) in the same shopping center. Unfortunately, very few of those original stores still exist and the photos here feature a store that if it is not already closed will be shortly when the new ones opens in Winder where the Sky City was originally.



The Ingles like the ones pictured have either been painted over, demolished and replaced with a new store on the same spot, closed or relocated. Usually these relocatations were in the same shopping center, replacing one of the older and smaller Wal-Marts before they ate the country. One of these original Ingles still exists in Hendersonville, NC (asking anybody to get that pic for me). Included with the Winder photos are a photo of the very retro Ingles at Innsbruck Mall in Asheville and the Ingles roadside sign in Blue Ridge.

Sprayberry Crossing: Late 70's Bliss, 21st Century Eyesore

One of the more interesting dead shopping centers I've uncovered is a complicated strip mall located in eastern Cobb County near the intersection of two major county highways. Named Sprayberry Crossing, the thing that makes it significant is how completely retro the whole center is as well as how the design is much like an early version of today's "lifestyle centers".

Why I'd pick such a random strip mall is by and large the very outlandish 70's design of the whole place and the fact it was never updated. The entire center is designed with cedar trim in that usual 45 degree-angled cut they did during that time. At the time, this design very nicely matched all the cedar homes being built in the area around it. Not only that, but such design made for an extremely outlandish Ogletree's/Bruno's that looks like nothing you'd see today.


Sprayberry Crossing was originally anchored by an Ogletree's grocery store and a bowling alley, which is still operational. Ogletree's was a local grocery chain with about eight locations prior to being purchased by Bruno's. The Bruno's there closed when the chain scaled back operations and closed all Georgia locations. The center is at the northeast corner of Sandy Plains and East Piedmont Roads and is accessable from Sandy Plains Road.


When Bruno's closed, the rest of the strip went to hell with it and left a very blighted area around it. The bowling alley, however, holds its own hidden back behind the retail graveyard you have to drive through to get to it. That bowling alley is one of the few in the area.