Greg Patterson peered down at the first floor of North Point Mall on a slow Thursday afternoon.
“GOING OUT OF BUSINESS,” and “EVERYTHING ON SALE!” posters engulfed the ceiling-high windows of the Forever 21 store below him. Empty stalls sat in the dark behind storefront gates without a tenant.
Patterson operates his own store that sells merchandise from small business owners and entrepreneurs. It’s called Market Place, and Patterson runs it Wednesday to Sunday, forgoing the beginning of the week when business is slow, he said. And he figures it won’t be long before he has to take his business elsewhere.
“I’m looking at this like it’s temporary,” he said.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
In its heyday, North Point was a major shopping destination in the Southeast, opening to fanfare in 1993 inside one of the highest income brackets in metro Atlanta.
For many regional malls across Georgia, scenes like this are now the norm as they fight to stay relevant in the digital world. Gwinnett Place Mall has remained vacant for years as it awaits a large mixed-use development. A sudden power cut at Cobb County’s Town Center in January shed light on the mall’s unpaid bills and financial woes.
North Point Mall’s future is similarly unclear.
Past ideas for North Point
The city of Alpharetta ultimately shot down a $550 million redevelopment plan by Trademark Property Company in 2022 after clashing over the number of apartment units to be built.
Former NHL player Anson Carter and partners announced plans a year ago to build a hockey arena and woo an expansion NHL franchise that would anchor a transformation of the mall complex. Carter’s group is one of two metro Atlanta partnerships looking to land an expansion team. The other is in Forsyth County, a few exits north of North Point along Ga. 400.
It’s unclear if the NHL will make a third attempt at pro hockey in the Atlanta area after the Flames and Thrashers failed to thrive.
Carter’s group and the NHL declined to comment. New York Life, the mall’s owner, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The Alpharetta City Council, meanwhile, recently greenlit a 30-year plan to revamp North Point into a walkable, green district, hoping to spur economic growth.
Credit: The City of Alpharetta
Credit: The City of Alpharetta
Multiple construction projects are already underway to bring this vision to life, including a $9.5 million park at North Point Parkway and Encore Parkway that will serve as a gateway to the Big Creek Greenway just south of the mall. Director of Public Works Pete Sewczwicz said the Encore Greenway Park and Gateway project is expected to be completed by Fall 2026.
About $10 million has also been allocated to the Alpha Link Trail, a 1.3-mile extension of the existing Alpha Loop that runs through downtown Alpharetta and Avalon, Sewczwicz said. The walking and biking trail will connect North Point from Encore Parkway to an Alpha Loop access point at Haynes Bridge Road.
With so much in flux along the North Point Parkway corridor, tenants and shoppers can only guess at the mall’s next chapter.
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
On this particular Thursday, the 100-acre mall property was deserted and silent, save for the intermittent squeals from the kids play area that seemed to attract more visitors than the stores themselves. The northeast end of the mall remained gated off where an abandoned Sears once stood. Stores like Express and Garage have left, while some mallgoers have already repurposed the space to fit their own needs.
“In the morning, I give out water and granola bars to the walkers,” Patterson said of people who still flock to North Point for exercise. “On Sunday, families who eat at Cheesecake Factory come at 2 p.m. to walk it off and do window shopping.”
“If you go down to Perimeter, you get that constant stream of people,” he said of the popular Dunwoody mall.
North Point Mall spokesperson Liana Moran said that the mall continues to be a staple for Alpharetta and north Fulton residents, and is continuing to explore retail partnerships.
Changing demographics, tastes
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Jean-Paul Addie, a Georgia State University associate professor in the Urban Studies Institute, pointed to a multitude of factors for the decline of North Point Mall, including demographic and economic shifts in north Fulton over the past several decades.
The Asian American population in the Roswell-Alpharetta area has nearly quadrupled since 2000, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, diversifying both the racial makeup of Alpharetta and the ways in which its residents live and socialize.
“The mall encapsulates a particular way of thinking of what a stereotypical American experience in the suburbs is,” he said. “Oftentimes, it’s in marginalized landscapes which we talk pejoratively about like strip malls, quick-built one- to two-story developments that serve social function that the mall does, but for different communities.
The 15-mile stretch of Ga. 400 from Mansell Road — just off North Point Parkway — to Ga. 20 has also seen significant investment from the tech industry, dubbed the “Technology Corridor” in 2022. The addition of these lucrative jobs has paved the way for high-end live-work-play developments like Alpharetta’s Avalon to thrive.
Many shoppers and retailers attribute the beginning of the mall’s end to the opening of Avalon in 2014, widely considered to be a major shopping and dining destination in Alpharetta, sporting brands like Chanel, Vineyard Vines and Lululemon that are not found at North Point.
“Everyone goes to Avalon, because it’s got all the good food and shops,” said Ashanta Donald, who opened her dessert kiosk Panda Pancakes at North Point in October 2024. “As a shopper, I would want the mall to bring in more high-end stores like Chanel, Michael Kors, but I know that’s not going to happen here.”
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Avalon recorded more than double the visits of North Point in March, according to Placer.ai, a real estate analytics company. New openings at Avalon this year include Jo Malone, Reformation and Tory Burch, spokesperson Britni Johnson said.
“The juxtaposition between what’s at the mall and developments like Avalon (shows) a very different type of built form and environment for people to consume and hang out and do more urban-type activities,” Addie said.
The predicament for North Point is only exacerbated by a nationwide trend after the pandemic as malls struggle to attract shoppers. The rise of online shopping and fast fashion has all but killed mall culture of the mid- to late-20th century, with younger shoppers preferring convenience over an in-person experience, Addie said.
“I feel like the culture of even just walking around the mall or having a place to be kind of went away,” said 25-year-old Taylor Turner, who frequented North Point Mall with his parents as a kid. “It’s not the first place you think of going most of the time.”
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Turner and his friend Jaeson Luis, 24, added that malls’ anchor stores no longer appeal to Gen Z shoppers who prefer more sustainable options like thrift stores or the convenience of shopping online.
“You have stores like Forever 21 that you pass by, and a lot of people in our generation think a lot about fast fashion, and I’m thinking, ‘Man, all of this stuff in this store are just going to be heading toward landfills if they don’t sell like tomorrow,’” Luis said.
And with concerns of inflation and a volatile stock market in response to President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, the mall is the last place many young people would want to be, Luis said.
“The death of the mall is a combination of a million issues, including the economy,” he said. “People don’t really know what’s going on with the economy and everybody seems to be thinking we’re heading to another recession.”
Doing things differently
The city of Alpharetta is placing its bets on what Addie calls “tiny built islands of walkability in a sea of automobility,” like Avalon and what the city hopes will become of North Point in 30 years’ time. But he warned of development that merely mimics the success of others and fails to consider the wants and needs of diverse demographic and income brackets.
Developments like a hockey arena would add very little direct economic value to Alpharetta residents, he said, encouraging the city to focus on “less splashy but more meaningful forms of inclusive development.”
“When you look at the crisis of the mall, it’s an opportunity to think about doing things differently,” Addie said. “What type of city, suburb, municipality do we want to be? How do we take the opportunity that’s presented by reimagining these spaces to do something that is sustainable, creative, equitable? That’s the importance the mall has to us now.”
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