 | |
 | |
| Location | Smyrna, Georgia, United States |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 33°54′00″N84°32′31″W / 33.90000°N 84.54194°W |
| Opening date | August 15, 1963 |
| Closing date | 1995 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 2 |
| No. of floors | 1 |
Cobb Center Mall (originally Cobb County Shopping Center) was a shopping mall in Smyrna, Georgia, United States. It was the second mall built in Georgia, and opened on August 15, 1963.
The mall was built in a post-World War II suburb of Atlanta by the parent company of Food Fair and featured nearly 50 stores including a Rich's department store (the fourth in the chain), Woolworths, Dunaway Drug (later Eckerd), Davis House restaurant (later Davis Brothers Cafeteria) and a Colonial supermarket. A six-screen movie theater, which later became King's Cinemas, was also opened on an outlot on the north side of the center. The mall was also originally an open-air center with covered walkways and the stores wrapped around the south and west side of the Rich's store, all facing it. [1]
For the first ten years, the mall was successful and the two-story Rich's store was quickly expanded with a one-story north wing that greatly increased the total floor space. The mall was a major blow to downtown Marietta, Georgia to the north. When the mall first opened, nearly all of the major clothing stores in downtown Marietta also had branches at Cobb Center. It began to draw out its tenants, leaving the downtown mostly dead by the 1970s.
Ten years after the mall opened, Cobb Center struggled after the opening of Cumberland Mall, a mall far superior in size and quantity stores compared to the much smaller open-air mall. Cumberland Mall opened in 1973 and featured all of the major Atlanta anchors including Rich's, Davison's, Sears and JCPenney. Cobb Center just had Rich's. The owners of Cobb Center in reaction to the new mall, fully enclosed the structure and added a new anchor, Grant City on the northwest corner of the mall.
The changes worked and the mall survived. There were two major factors to the success. The first was that Cumberland was the only nearby competition. Second, the Rich's at Cobb Center remained extremely popular. Rich's was enormously successful in the 1970s and this was one of only two locations that existed on the northwest side of Atlanta at the time. When Grant City closed in 1976, a small low-end chain with a store downtown named Kessler's took over the location.
Eventually, the mall was unable to continue to survive. The first blow came when Town Center Mall in Kennesaw, Georgia opened in 1986 in what had been a farming area. The mall also included Rich's. Town Center Mall was also much larger than Cumberland and was more convenient to the northern suburbs. The second blow was that the area around the mall was declining very sharply. The shopping base dwindled and so did the mall traffic. By then, Cobb Center looked very dated and small with its dark wood interior and very 1960s retro exterior.
Once again, in 1987, the mall was renovated for its 25th anniversary. This time, it was redesigned to the popular bright pastel look of the 1980s, skylights were improved and the mall was renamed "Four Seasons Mall" to attempt to remove the stigma of the mall that had been fading slowly for over a decade. As a short-term boost for the center, Howard's Restaurant, which had been a small bar and grill located across the street, located in the former Davis Brothers bringing business back to the center. Unfortunately, this renovation did not lead to expansion and many parts of the mall remained vacant, including the former Colonial/Big Star grocery store on the southwest corner, which closed at the mall somewhere in that period.
In the late 1980s, the mall continued to operate with many vacancies and no customers. What kept the mall alive was the Rich's and Kessler's, both which looked little different from the days they opened. With the upscale shoppers avoiding the center, Rich's was downscaled to a clearance store by the early 1990s and Kessler's closed in 1990 with no replacement. Howard's moved to a new location, and all that remained for tenants was a few stores including Woolworth's, Eckerd Drugs in the former Dunaway Drugs and Friedman's Jewelry. One of the wings to the mall had burned and was closed off as well. The mall was finally demolished in 1995 except for the Rich's, which lingered until it closed in February 2004.
The former Rich's entrances to the mall were sealed except for the front entrance and a strip mall was attached to both sides of the Rich's store. The back parking lot of the mall was converted into a soccer park and the Rich's continued to operate there until it closed. The center was also renamed back to simply Cobb Center.
In December 2008, the Smyrna city council unanimously approved a rezoning which would allow for Imagine International Academy to move its school into the two-story part of the Rich's building, covering 120,000 square feet (11,000 m2) of floor space. The classic façade will be destroyed and it will be made to look like a "modern school", to open in August for the 2009-2010 school year. Imagine International Academy opened for business as of 2010. [2]
| Name | Year opened | Year closed | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grant's | 1973 | 1976 | |
| Kessler's | 1976 | 1990 | Replaced Grant City |
| Rich's | 1963 | 2004 | Co-branded Rich's–Macy's from 2003–2004 |
Cobb County is a county in the U.S. state of Georgia, located in the Atlanta metropolitan area in the north central portion of the state. As of 2020 Census, the population was 766,149. It is the state's third most populous county, after Fulton and Gwinnett counties. Its county seat is Marietta; its largest city is Mableton.
Lenox Square is a shopping mall in the Buckhead district of Atlanta, Georgia. With 198 tenants and 1,558,678 square feet (144,805.9 m2) of gross leasable area, it is the third-largest mall in Georgia. The mall is currently owned and managed by Simon Property Group, and is considered a sister mall to the adjacent, Simon-owned Phipps Plaza. The mall features Macy's, Bloomingdale's, and Neiman Marcus.
Rich's was a department store retail chain, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, which operated in the southern U.S. from 1867 until March 6, 2005 when the nameplate was eliminated and replaced by Macy's. Many of the former Rich's stores today form the core of Macy's Central, an Atlanta-based division of Macy's, Inc., which formerly operated as Federated Department Stores, Inc.
Ernest W. Barrett Parkway is a major thoroughfare in the northwestern part of the Atlanta metropolitan area, in the north-central part of Cobb County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. It travels from the southeastern edge of Kennesaw to a point north of Marietta, and continues on in both directions under other names. The portion of Barrett Parkway between Interstate 575 (I-575/SR 5) and US 41/SR 3 is designated State Route 5 Connector. The road is named after Ernest W. Barrett, the first chairman of the Cobb County Board of Commissioners in the 1960s, after home rule was enacted under a Georgia State Constitution amendment. The initial portion was constructed through Barrett family land, enabling it to be later sold for major development.
Richway was the discount department store division of Atlanta-based Rich's. It was originally part of Rich's, and was later bought by Federated Department Stores when they purchased the Rich's chain. It was originally known as Richway, a Rich's Company with a more bluish logo than the later orange and black theme under Federated ownership. The sunrise logo means "Everything Under The Sun", the slogan used in advertisements from that period. The official name of the chain was later Richway Department Stores. A long tagline on commercials was "We don't look like a discount store, but our price tags give us away."
Davison's of Atlanta was a department store chain and an Atlanta shopping institution. It was the major competition to Rich's and it took the Macy's name in 1986.
Cumberland Mall is a shopping mall in the Cumberland district of Metropolitan Atlanta near the suburbs of Smyrna and Vinings. It was the largest shopping mall in Georgia when it opened on August 8, 1973. The mall features the traditional retailers Macy's, Dick's Sporting Goods, Costco, in addition to Planet Fitness, and Round 1 Entertainment.
Town Center at Cobb, is a super-regional shopping mall located in Cobb County, Georgia near Atlanta. The anchor stores are two Macy's stores, a Belk, and a JCPenney. There is one vacant anchor stores that was once Sears.
Five Points is a metro station of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) rail system in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the transfer point for all rail lines and serves as the main transportation hub for MARTA. It provides access to the Five Points Business District, Underground Atlanta, City Hall, the Richard B. Russell Federal Building, CobbLinc, Ride Gwinnett, GRTA Xpress Transit, Station Soccer, and the tourism heart of Downtown Atlanta. It provides connecting bus service to Zoo Atlanta, Grant Park, Atlanta University Center, East Atlanta Village, Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, Carter Center, Atlanta City Hall, South Dekalb Mall and Fulton County Government Center.
Camillus Plaza and now known as Camillus Commons, was a shopping mall in Camillus, New York.
Cumberland is an edge city in Cobb County located in an unincorporated area of the northwest Atlanta metropolitan area, Georgia, United States. It is situated ten miles (16 km) northwest of downtown Atlanta. With approximately 122,000 workers and 103,000 residents, Cumberland is the region's fifth-largest business district, and is marked by several modern skyscrapers rising from the wooded hills above the freeways. The Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball play their games at Truist Park, which is located in Cumberland.
Charlottetown Mall is a shopping mall located in North Carolina. The first enclosed shopping mall, it opened on October 28, 1959. Atlanta's Lenox Square opened two months earlier, but it was an open-air mall at first. The mall was situated on a 10-acre (40,000 m2) parcel on the southeastern fringes of Charlotte's "center city" area. Rouse Company was the mall's developers.
Richland Mall was an enclosed shopping mall near the intersection of Forest Drive and Beltline Blvd in Forest Acres, South Carolina within the greater Columbia Metropolitan Area. The interior mall space has been closed to the public since early 2022. However, its last anchor store, Belk, continued to operate until early September 2023. A Barnes & Noble continued to operate as a junior anchor with its own exterior access until December 31, 2023. There are two additional empty anchor stores that have both been largely vacant since the late 2000s. The mall's last inline tenant, Columbia Children's Theatre, moved out on February 1, 2023. The mall has never received a major renovation and has an ornate late 1980s-early 1990s interior aesthetic.
River Roads Mall, also known as River Roads Shopping Center, was an enclosed shopping mall located in the city of Jennings, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Opened in 1962 as one of the nation's first shopping malls, it featured J. C. Penney, F. W. Woolworth Company, Kroger, and Stix, Baer & Fuller as its anchor stores. The mall was expanded in 1972 with a new location of J. C. Penney, but began losing major stores in the early 1980s. J. C. Penney closed in 1983, but was soon reopened as an outlet store, while Stix, Baer & Fuller was sold to Dillard's in 1984 and closed only two years later. Tenancy continued to decline throughout the 1990s, culminating in the closure of the J. C. Penney outlet and mall proper in 1995, although the abandoned structure was not demolished until 2006.
Greenbriar Mall is a shopping mall in the Greenbriar neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia that opened in 1965. The anchor stores are Beauty Master, Dollar Tree, Greenbriar Furniture, and Citi Trends. There are 2 vacant anchor stores that were once Burlington and Fallas. It was home to the first Chick-fil-A location.
Around 2004, Little Bucks was a short-lived local retail chain of superstore-like dollar stores around metro Atlanta, and nearby areas of Georgia, United States. Founded in 2002, its seven stores began opening in late 2003, and closed in late February 2005 after going bankrupt.
Northland Mall was a shopping mall located on the north side of Columbus, Ohio, at the intersection of Morse Road and Karl Road. It opened in 1964 as an open-air shopping center. Northland was the first of the four directionally-named shopping hubs in Columbus, along with Eastland, Westland, and Southland. Though popular through the 1990s, three new shopping centers were completed in the late 1990s and early 2000s that took businesses and shoppers away from Northland. It closed in 2002 and was demolished in 2004. The site has subsequently been redeveloped as Northland Village, a multi-use complex containing government offices, retail stores and the Franklin County Dog Shelter and Adoption Center.
South Downtown is a historic neighborhood of Downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. South Downtown is primarily home to city, county, state, and federal governmental offices, which prompted the city to adopt signage declaring the area "Government Walk." Although much of South Downtown is dominated by surface parking lots, the neighborhood was passed over during the redevelopment boom of the 1960s and 1970s that resulted in the demolition of much of Downtown's architecturally significant buildings. The result is myriad buildings from the 1950s and earlier that retain their historic structural integrity.
East Cobb is an unincorporated community in Cobb County, Georgia, United States, with a population of 164,055 people. It is an affluent northern suburb of Atlanta.
Westgate Shopping Center was the first fully enclosed shopping mall in Georgia. It opened in 1961, a year after Eastwood opened in Birmingham, Alabama. Like Eastwood, Westgate had no department store anchors but was prominently anchored by five and dime store JJ Newberry's.