Cobb Galleria Specialty Shops to close after nearly 45 years

The mall first opened in the 1980s and, in its heyday, was “the place to be,” said Karen Caro, the Galleria’s communications director.

“There’s a lot of nostalgia from people who are of a certain age, who grew up in Atlanta, who used to come to the AMC movie theater when it was here,” she said. “And there was an arcade that was very popular across the way, and a lot of nice fine dining restaurants and boutique retail shops that used to be here as well.”

But now, the shops are mostly empty, with just about 10 tenants left, she said.

The Cobb-Marietta Coliseum and Exhibit Hall Authority, governing body that owns and operates the Galleria and the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center, plans major renovations to expand the Galleria convention center while adding another ballroom and a 2-story grand entrance, and creating two courtyards. It will also open 13,000 square feet of additional meeting space, all according to a news release.

Credit: Cobb Galleria

Credit: Cobb Galleria

Credit: Cobb Galleria

Credit: Cobb Galleria

The groundbreaking is slated for this fall, and the project is expected to be completed in 2027.

Murph’s, a sports bar and restaurant owned by Atlanta Braves icon Dale Murphy, opened at the Galleria in 2017 and will close in mid-August before renovations start. The restaurant’s co-owner Chuck Douglas said its future is uncertain, but they hope to eventually reopen at the Galleria.

“We’ve been very, very blessed being here,” Douglas said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s sad that we’ll have to move on, but it’s just a different chapter in our book. We would like to come back, and we’re in talks with them, but who knows what the future is going to hold.”

With the advent of online shopping, malls across the country have struggled to bring people out to shop in-person. Retailers had high hopes that the Atlanta Braves’ move to the area nearly a decade ago would bring shoppers, too, the AJC reported at the time.

“Boutique shopping declined a little bit. People, the foot traffic coming into the mall has declined, and the occupancy in the mall has declined,” Caro said. “Our authority was working for many years to find better uses for that space.”

The area has experienced business growth, Douglas said. His restaurant wouldn’t have moved there in 2017 if it weren’t for the Braves. But the opening of Truist Park included the Battery, a mixed-use development around the ballpark that also features high-end shops and restaurants.

The Galleria shops relied on additional traffic filtering over during games, conventions and other events, Douglas said.

While the Braves improved the Galleria’s status as a convention center, “I don’t know that that panned out exactly as, maybe, the hopes were, in terms of increasing the foot traffic within the shops,” Caro said.