North Point Mall
North Point Mall, located in Alpharetta, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta), opened in 1993 as one of the largest shopping malls in the country. The mall originally opened with five anchors, the most on one mall in Georgia at that time. The original anchors of the mall were Rich's, Lord & Taylor, Mervyn's, JCPenney, and Sears. It was originally believed that Macy's would be a sixth anchor, but the R.H. Macy Co. was bankrupt that year and sold out to Federated Department Stores, which owned Rich's, a year later. One of the distinct elements of the mall was the Rich's store, which was designed with numerous distinctive historical elements and a more elaborate design to pay tribute to its lost flagship store in downtown Atlanta, which had closed only two years earlier.
Located of the Haynes Bridge Rd exit of GA 400 (#9), the mall opened in the fall of 1993 to accommodate the exploding population in Roswell and Alpharetta, and the center became an integral force in the change of North Fulton County from a bucolic, rural area to a fast-paced, upscale suburb of Atlanta. The mall attracted many restaurants, stores, and businesses to the surrounding area, and now the formerly quiet two-lane roads and fields around the mall have become major arteries lined with every type of restaurant imaginable, booming businesses, and subdivisions full of upscale homes. [1]
Change happened quickly within the mall as well: Mervyn's vacated in 1995 and Dillard's filled the sixth pad on the east side of the mall the following year. A large parking deck was also constructed next to Dillard's. Though JCPenney converted most of the former Mervyn's locations, they already had a location at the mall. Instead, Parisian took the spot, making the mall more upscale in the process. In 2005, Lord & Taylor closed its 115,000 sq. ft. store at the mall leaving a vacant anchor. 2005 was a year of more change for North Point Mall, as Rich's was converted to Macy's. Though this conversion necessitated the destruction of the elaborate Rich's sign engraved into the building, the other historic Rich's features remain. Parisian will also soon turn into Belk, as the latter has bought the former's stores in Metro Atlanta. Originally a Homart Property, the mall has changed ownership and is now owned and managed by General Growth Properties, setting it apart from the many Simon Malls that proliferate in the Atlanta area. GGP is the nation's second-largest Real Estate Investment Trust and owns several other malls in Georgia, including Perimeter Mall and Cumberland Mall. [2]
The mall was most recently renovated 2003, when the interior was modernized to introduce more sitting areas, and in 2004, when an entire escalator was moved from East Court near Starbucks to the Sears wing of the mall.
Construction is currently underway on an American Girl that is expected to draw crowds from around the Southeast to Alpharetta and the mall.
North Point Mall continues to serve one of the most affluent parts of metropolitan Atlanta and continues to remain successful despite competition from the newer and bigger Mall of Georgia in Buford. North Point's success can perhaps be the result of contributed to its appealing mix of stores (including Apple Computer, J. Crew, Gap, Pottery Barn, Coach, Teavana, Abercrombie & Fitch, Ann Taylor, Starbucks, and Victoria's Secret, to name just a few of the nearly 200),.
North Point Mall caters to young families with children with a mix of stores that includes Janie & Jack, abercrombie, Gymboree, The Disney Store, Stride Rite, The Children's Place, and Build-a-Bear Workshop. A soft indoor playground occupies the entire West Court; North Point Mall also offers morning exercise classes called "Stroller Strides" for mothers and their children.
The mall no longer has any sit-down restaurants inside, but the California Pizza Kitchen continues to draw shoppers to its location in the parking lot near Dillard's, and The Cheesecake Factory opened its third restaurant in Georgia (and first outside of Atlanta) at North Point Mall in 2004. A large celebration marked the ribbon-cutting events in June of 2004, and two years later, the restaurant is still luring many North Point customers through the "Yellow Brick Road" in the parking deck that marks the route from the mall's Center Court. Dozens of other restaurants line North Point Parkway and Mansell Rd - two of the main roads surrounding the mall.
While North Point Mall is known as a major upscale retail center throughout Georgia and parts of the Southeast, it is perhaps most famous for the carousel that sits behind an enormous floor-to-ceiling window in the Food Court. Crafted in Brooklyn, New York by the Fabricon Carousel Company, the carousel's hand-painted fiberglass animals were modelled after those of a vintage Victorian carousel on Coney Island.
North Point Mall's customer service group offers package check, complimentary wheelchairs, lost and found, and many other services - in addition to selling GGP mall gift cards and American Express gift cards.
North Point's security team (Valor Security Services) monitors the entire mall - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year - through an extensive CCTV network involving nearly 70 cameras throughout the mall.
Anchors
- Dillard's (opened 1996; 248,151 sq. ft.)
- JCPenney (opened 1993; 120,843 sq. ft.)
- Macy's (opened 1993 as Rich's, became Macy's 2005; 240,000 sq. ft.)
- Belk ( 84,407 sq. ft.) (Opened as Mervyn's in 1993)
- Sears (opened 1993; 134,886 sq. ft.)
Major Stores
- Abercrombie & Fitch
- Cheesecake Factory (10,300 sq. ft.)
- Express (11,651 sq. ft.)
- Gap (15,907 sq. ft.)
- Pottery Barn (11,238 sq. ft.)
Former Anchor
Lord & Taylor (Opened in 1993 115,00 sq ft, closed in 2005 when the left market) vacant Mervyn's (opened in 1993, converted to Parisian in 1995, Belk in 2007)