Greenbriar Mall (Update from July 16, 2006 post)

It was the first major shopping mall on the southside of Atlanta and the second enclosed mall in Georgia. When Greenbriar Mall opened on September 23, 1965, it brought first-class shopping to the largely overlooked southside. Flanking the then under-construction Lakewood Freeway (SR 166) and I-285, the mall opened with anchors Rich's, JCPenney and Piccadilly Cafeteria. JCPenney moved there from its smaller, undersized location located at open-air Lakewood Mall on the other end of the new freeway. The Rich's there was the fifth suburban location and offered three floors of merchandise, further drawing traffic from the downtown store. Greenbriar Mall also became a landmark, because it was the site of the very first Chick Fil-A, which opened there two years later in 1967. Chick-Fil-A itself was founded in nearby Riverdale as a local diner, so this was the nearest location for their new store concept, which grew dramatically since and has remained a staple of malls today. A Chick-Fil-A continues to operate in the mall today, though not in the original location.

Arial shot of the mall from a 1965 postcard. Image is from Malls of America.

Greenbriar Mall was typical of most early shopping malls: two multi-level anchors, one story and an underground section of the mall used for offices and a bowling alley. The presence of a bowling alley in this mall was not known, however. Also like the original malls of the era, the mall contains stores only accessable from the outside as well as in-line tenants. Since the mall opened, it had an interior renovation in 1987 and an exterior renovation in 1997. Also, Greenbriar Mall was distinctly positioned to be a major mall at the intersection of two Atlanta belt routes. The problem is that one of those, I-420, was never completed and the designation canceled. This would have made a by-pass for I-20 extending from Douglasville to I-20 east of Atlanta including the completed Lakewood Freeway. If that would have actually helped the mall, though, is unknown since the project was canceled in 1983.

View of northeast entrance corridor.

Looking along the main mall concourse. The first and third photos show detail of the open-air mall-like overhang and the last of the skylights. The original makeup of this corridor was likely much boxier. The last photo shows the escalator/stairs to the small basement level in the background.

Looking at the northwest entrance corridor. Piccadilly Cafeteria is on the left, and it still looks somewhat gothic on the inside. Outside this entrance is an outdoor sidewalk that leads to the former Circuit City building and entrance.

While the mall maintained stable tenants for the first 20 years, the mall began to see many stores come and go. However, these were met with a strong local interest and investment to keep the mall viable. JCPenney closed there location on September 28, 1985 after 20 years of operation. The local community met the closing with protests that included then-mayor of Atlanta Andrew Young, but to no avail. However, the mall has kept this location filled since aside from a couple brief periods of vacancy. In 1987, Upton's took over the former JCPenney along with the opening of a new Circuit City outside the mall next to JCPenney. Later, in mid-1992, Cub Foods opened a location on a mall outlot facing Lakewood Freeway. Unfortunately, later in 1992 both Upton's and the McCrory's in the mall closed for good, but the mall continued to move forward.

Coming down the escalator to the small lower level basement area. Escalators and steps back up are visible in the background. This area is today used for mall offices and conferences.

Looking back at the down escalator and stairs from the main mall level.

Blurry shot with detail of the downstairs level. The mall management office is the lighted room on the left.

Looking at the up escalator and stairs back to the main mall concourse from the main mall level. A barrier is placed on three sides.

In 1995, the former JCPenney site was resurrected again, bringing Burlington Coat Factory in as an anchor. While not what the mall had hoped, it has been a lasting anchor in the mall. The Burlington Coat Factory opened on September 1st of that year and remains today. In November 1996, former basketball star Magic Johnson opened his Magic Johnson Theaters on the southwest outlot of the mall. Magic Johnson had a personal interest in the area, and its opening created a lot of press at the time. Also, at some point during that time an IHOP was added on the southwest corner of the mall connected to south side of the Burlington Coat Factory. Still, that did not mean the mall did not have new challenges to deal with. Cub Foods closed in 2001 along with all of the other Georgia locations and remains vacant today. In addition, Circuit City closed at the mall when it relocated to nearby Camp Creek Marketplace in early 2006.

Current mall directory. The basement level is shown above the main mall map.

When Camp Creek Marketplace opened, it was the first major retail development in the southside since Greenbriar itself opened. In an area shunned for retail because of a predominantly African-American population, this was a very big deal. The problem was that it also was competing with the mall for business, which has led to redevelopment talks. In 2006, a redevelopment plan was announced after Hendon Properties bought 50 percent interest in the mall in conjunction with the existing owners. The discussion is to redevelop the mall most likely with a lifestyle addition similar to other Atlanta malls as well as attempting to upscale the mall. What also helps the mall is the strong commitment that Rich's, now Macy's has to the mall. In 2001, Rich's owners Federated Department Stores signed a 10 year lease with the mall. Recent renovations to the store inside and out prove the company's commitment to Greenbriar Mall.

Burlington Coat Factory mall entrance and BCF court. This was Penney's from 1965-1985 and Upton's from 1987-1992. Note the Upton's design elements. Also note the Maxway in the court. Maxway is owned by the same company as Rose's, but is located in urban neighborhoods. In the last photo, the northwest entrance court (behind me) leads straight to the southwest entrance court (ahead).

Much fear has surrounded the future of Greenbriar Mall for over two decades, however. By the mid-1980's, the neighborhood around the mall had transitioned from a predominantly white to predominantly African-American community. Stores and businesses in the area began to close all around the mall, and the fear in the time was that the mall was in danger of failure. In that era, the mall attained a strong image as ghetto, and the closure of JCPenney at the mall caused panic. The funny thing is that the new community around the mall really cared about what was going on and was determined to keep that from happening. Since that time the mall has continued to maintain high occupancy, and the neighborhood around the mall has seen substantial improvement in the past decade. A new Kroger was built near the mall and empty shopping centers found new tenants.

Rich's/Macy's court. This photo was taken at a better angle and further back than the previous Rich's photos I took in 2005. See below for actual Rich's photos. The second photo is looking back into the court. The fountain had water in it, but for some reason was not operational. BCF court had a fountain, too, that was covered.

However, that is not to say the mall does not have its problems. The community is looking to erase these problems, but notorious events that tend to be difficult for any mall. However, these can be overcome such as the food court shooting incident at Perimeter Mall in 1989. Perimeter Mall is alive and very well today, and to say there is no urban element at the mall is blind, but it is the third most upscale mall in Atlanta. Nevertheless, Greenbriar is still ranked highly as one of the most dangerous malls in the nation, likely due to incidents such as the Freaknik looting of the Rich's in 1995 and the recent murder of two teens by a gunman at the mall in 2008. Is this a deserved bad reputation or just a media misperception? It is a bit hard to cast a completely positive image to the city as a whole when the mall has hardly any white customers and shoppers of higher income, regardless of race, have reservations about shopping there.

Outside view of the JCPenney/Upton's/Burlington Coat Factory. The ribbed design is original, but the greenhouse design is all Upton's. The second photo shows an IHOP making up the southwest corner in front of the JCPenney. Apparently JCPenney never had an entrance on this side.

Greenbriar today is on the inside actually a very attractive mall in a convenient location. Its interior decor and history make it appealing above many other malls in the city, but it remains a mall that caters exclusively to an urban demographic. Don't expect to find American Eagle, Old Navy or H&M in the mall, but do expect to find the mall is doing much better than people will tell you. The mall is full of stores and gets plenty of customers, but those in the area with more money are driving past it to better shopping. Southlake, another predominately African-American mall, has a lot of the trendy national clothing stores. All of those left Greenbriar before 1990.

The Lakewood Freeway side has many shops open only to the outside of the mall.

Southeast mall entrance with outside shops on the left and Rich's/Macy's on the right. A Rich's labelscar is still visible next to the Macy's sign.

Maybe I do not understand the market well enough, but I have to wonder if this mall can support better stores than urban fashions and knock-offs considering that there is a much larger middle class population in the area than in the past. Would a store like Belk or a return of JCPenney make it at the mall? For the time being, the mall is doing quite well considering its challenges over the past 24 years. When Macy's lease runs out in 2011 will its fortunes stay bright? As its age approaches half a century, it is hoped the mall never gets a post on deadmalls.com or ends up in the retail graveyard like comparable classic River Roads Mall in St Louis did. Of course, all of that depends on if the neighborhood is really on its way back and further investment in the mall is successful in making it competitive against Southlake and a potential comeback of Shannon.

Exterior view of Rich's/Macy's from lower level south entrance. Most of the glass display windows are covered up and extra entrances sealed off. It is wondered if this was done in response to the 1995 incident.

Rich's photos from 2004 and 2005:

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.

Westgate Shopping Center: Macon, GA

KA Turner alerted me and sent me all the information for this post, so everything here is quoting or rephrasing what he already sent me. After an almost three year delay, I am finally doing a post on this place, which was a very significant yet overlooked piece of Georgia retail history. The information below was submitted to me by him on September 27, 2006, and I have rewritten and paraphrased much of the information for clarity purposes. The last paragraph is my addendum to what he said.

This photo is from the 1971 Southwest High School annual (KA Turner: image).

Westgate Shopping Center (aka Westgate Mall) was the first fully enclosed shopping mall in Georgia. It opened in 1961, which was a year after Eastwood opened in Birmingham. Like Eastwood, Westgate had no department store anchors, though the mall was prominently anchored by JJ Newberry's (much like Eastwood). Like most of the earliest malls, they did not affect downtown shopping since they had few anchors and a smaller selection of choices. They were essentially strip malls turned facing each other with a central corridor. Downtown actually continued to thrive throughout the 1960's until Macon Mall came later on.

This photo is from the 1971 Southwest High School annual (KA Turner: image).

Like Eastwood Mall, Westgate was anchored by two grocery stores in addition to Newberry's. In the early 70's Piggly Wiggly, Newberry's, and Colonial Stores were the anchors. Woolworth's and Gilberg's cloth store, both replaced by Cloth World, took up the Colonial court. Fickling and Walker operated for years in the center. Also, a locksmith was located next to Newberry's in a large kiosk. Next to this were, not in order, a clothing store, Sherwin-Williams, and a sweet store. Westgate Triple Cinemas set up shop in an outparcel. Finally, Eckerd Drugs and a few other stores, including Household Finance and a Coin and Trick Shop, sat in the north court by Piggly Wiggly.

Back when EVERY mall had a cafeteria, apparently Westgate's was G&M. They were supposedly in Atlanta, too. I have never heard of them, assuming S&S must have bought them out (KA Turner: image).

Macon Mall killed Westgate Mall in 1975, which caused it to become a ghetto mall. This likely would not have happened if the mall had been able to attract any downtown department stores beforehand. According to the Macon Telegraph, the mall was completely empty by 1978. When this happened, an attempt was first made to make it an outlet mall. Later, Wal-Mart was tacked onto the side in 1988 and a pedestrian hall made onto the side of the old Colonial store. Scotty's Home Improvement Center, a now-defunct Florida staple, replaced the Piggly Wiggly on the north side. Burlington Coat Factory replaced Key Wholesale Distributors where Newberry's originally stood. All of these efforts proved futile to save a mall with no real department store anchors just down the street from huge Macon Mall. In 1994, the wrecking ball hit all but Wal-Mart and Home Depot with work completed the following year. Later, the theater was dozed.

The strip mall that replaced Westgate Mall included, in addition to Burlington and Wal-Mart, Media Play, Petsmart, Stacy's and Home Depot, which apparently replaced Scotty's. Today, Westgate Mall is dying again. The strip mall that replaced it is now emptied out as the area around it declines and retail chains that came into the redeveloped center failed from bankruptcy. Now, the strip mall that was built to replace it is facing difficulties of its own. Unfortunately, it looks like that after three tries that nothing could really save the ailing fortunes of Westgate, which today has nothing left other than last chance merchant Burlington Coat Factory. This time, though, local leaders are left in a dilemma on a mall that has died three times, but the fortunes once again look bleak for Westgate. As one of the first to be built and one of the first to die in the state, the mall had a short life and rocky history.

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.