Gwinnett County’s redevelopment agency is slated to buy the shuttered Sears store at Gwinnett Place Mall as it pushes forward on the defunct retail center’s rebirth. 

Gwinnett County is purchasing the former Sears store at Gwinnett Place Mall.

The Urban Redevelopment Agency of Gwinnett County unanimously approved the purchase of the 11.5-acre vacant Sears store and adjacent parking lot for $11.5M during the agency’s special meeting on Tuesday. 

The empty department store is owned by Northwood Ravin, which purchased it in 2018 from Sears for $11M, according to Gwinnett County records.

The acquisition brings the county one step closer to its longtime goal of redeveloping the ailing mall. Later this month, Gwinnett officials plan to issue a request for proposals from developers for their vision on the mall’s rebirth, Nicole Love Hendrickson, who heads the URA and is chairwoman of the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners, told Bisnow on Wednesday.

Those visions would likely involve developers razing parts of the existing mall, Hendrickson said. The main 562K SF enclosed portion of the mall — which the county purchased from Moonbeam Capital in 2021 for $23M — was used as a set for Netflix’s Stranger Things in 2019.

“It’s likely some parts of it will have to be torn down, but we have to wait for those proposals to come back to see what needs to stay, what needs to go,” she said. 

The Sears deal is expected to close by the end of October, after which point the county will command 87.5 acres of the mall property, including the former Macy’s department store that Gwinnett purchased in 2024 for $16.5M. 

The sale officially ends any ambition Northwood Ravin, which is primarily a multifamily developer, had for the former Sears store. Hendrickson said talks about the county buying its portion of Gwinnett Place Mall had been evolving for some time but became more realistic after Gwinnett bought the Macy’s anchor last year. 

“It signaled to them that it was time to let go of the property,” she said. 

Charlotte-based Northwood Ravin didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Board of Commissioners approved a plan in 2023 to redevelop the mall with up to 3,800 new housing units set in seven different villages, 55K SF of retail centered around a 4.4-acre central park, 50K SF of office, and a 52K SF international community cultural center and a public parking garage. 

The county is also proposing turning the current ring road around the mall into a 1.25-mile greenway with sidewalks and a cycle track.

The two open mall anchors, Asian department store Mega Mart and beauty supply retailer Beauty Master, own their own spaces. Hendrickson said the county has reached out in the past about acquiring their real estate so Gwinnett can have complete control over the property, but those talks have gone nowhere. 

“I think ultimately having 100% of the property would give us prime opportunity to redevelop it,” she said. “Having the existing anchor tenants there will make it a challenge but won’t make it impossible. We are not pressuring any of the anchor owners to give up their properties.”

The redevelopment will also include a new multimodal hub for rapid bus, microtransit and vehicles, called the Gwinnett Place Transit Center, a project largely funded by the Federal Transit Administration. The transit center, located on a county-owned parcel across from the former Macy’s department store, is expected to finish in 2032.

The actual redevelopment of the mall, though, will likely take much longer. Hendrickson said the eventual developer and its vision for the project will determine the timeline for redevelopment.

“Commercial mall redevelopment typically takes 25 to 30 years,” Hendrickson said. “It’s a legacy project. I probably won’t be in office by the time this is complete. But I can say I had a hand in getting it off the ground.”

Foxfield and AEW Capital Management, are moving ahead on their Sugarloaf Logistics Hub campus project in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Foxfield and AEW acquired the property in 2022 with the intent to convert a six-building, 740,000 square feet, corporate office campus into a master-planned campus with over 2.2 million square feet of industrial, warehouse and logistics uses in seven new buildings ranging from 120,000 square feet to over 600,000 square feet with flexible floor plates.

Souto Foods signed a lease on a 200,000-square-foot building within the campus for a significant cold storage component. The company plans to invest $28 million in the site and hire 70 new positions in the county.

Additionally, the duo sold a 13-acre multifamily development parcel to Westplan Investors. This land sale will pave the way for the development of approximately 330 multifamily dwelling units along Sugarloaf Parkway and Cruse Road. Construction is expected to commence in the second quarter of 2025. A JLL team headed up both the lease agreement and the land sale.

Gwinnett County is expanding its control over the Gwinnett Place Mall as it works to redevelop and resuscitate the aging property.

Courtesy of Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners

Gwinnett Place Mall in Gwinnett County that is set for a total redevelopment.

The Gwinnett County Commission voted Tuesday to spend $16.5M to acquire the Macy’s department store and furniture store at the mall, a property that includes parking lots and spans 23 acres.

The purchase is being conducted by the Gwinnett County Urban Redevelopment Agency, which earlier this year tapped CBRE to plan the property’s total redevelopment.

The purchase means that the county now controls a total of 76 acres of the former mall property, including the central 526K SF indoor mall portion that was previously used as the set for the third season of Netflix’s Stranger Things. Gwinnett purchased the inline stores, food court and former Belk anchor for $23M in 2020 from Moonbeam Capital, whose previous ownership had become a frequent source of frustration for county officials for failing to initiate any redevelopment efforts of the now-defunct mall. 

But the purchase now means Gwinnett has more real estate to accomplish the transformation of the mall into its Global Village plan first unveiled in 2022. The vision calls for 3,800 new residential units, 50K SF of office space, 55K SF of retail and a 50K SF cultural center surrounding a 13-acre public park. 

“The acquisition of the Macy’s site marks a pivotal step forward in the redevelopment of Gwinnett Place Mall, setting the stage for Gwinnett County to establish a national — and possibly international — model for equitable and impactful transformation,” Gwinnett County Chairwoman Nicole Love Hendrickson said in a statement.

Remaining anchors Beauty Master and Mega Mart own their stores, and Charlotte developer Northwood Ravin owns the shuttered Sears store, which it plans to convert into an apartment tower.

The Macy’s is expected to remain open until early 2025, officials said. CBRE is expected to issue a request for proposals early next year for developers to tackle the redevelopment project.

Gwinnett officials are betting that the redevelopment of the mall would drive an economic boom in the county. A 2023 study by the Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District, which includes the mall property and surrounding 5.6M SF of office space and 15.7M SF of industrial properties, warned that significant delays to the redevelopment could mean the county could lose the potential for millions of new dollars of public revenue and thousands of jobs.

“Gwinnett Place CID is already punching above its weight,” Gwinnett Place CID Joe Allen told Bisnow earlier this year, citing its estimated economic impact to the county. “By creating a new urban core at the old mall site, we could blow that $15.9B economic impact out of the water, elevate property values and spread a halo of benefits to surrounding areas in the county.”

RangeWater goes against the flow. Instead of taking out acquisition loans to acquire properties, it buys them with cash. Its latest…Provenza at Old Peachtree in Gwinnett County. RangeWater paid $62.8 million, or $243,410 a unit for the 258-unit project. The community, which is around ten years old, sits on 14 acres just outside of Interstate 85. In late 2022, the firm paid all cash for a 228-unit, garden-style community in Druid Hills, now named The Dakota. 

The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports Miami’s Momentum Real Estate Partners was the seller, which paid $50.5 million for the community in 2019. 

The plan for its latest purchase is to complete minor renovations to the units and offer competitive rents just below newer apartments. Atlanta-based RangeWater has nearly 100,000 units under management in 194 cities.

Industry leaders and power players are connecting at Connect Phoenix Multifamily & Single-Family Build-to-Rent on April 18 at the Westin Kierland Resort & Spa. Don’t miss the expert’s take on where the market is headed, and what changes are on the horizon. Register Now!

Concord Hospitality has added the finishing touches to the 348-room Westin Atlanta Gwinnett in Duluth, and will start accepting guests later this week. Some of the features included in the new hotel include a rooftop restaurant with three bars, a fitness studio with an indoor saltwater pool and easy access to a nearby convention center.

The hotel is part of the Gas South District, the 118-acre campus anchored by a 13,000-seat arena and convention center that sees about 1 million visitors a year. The hotel is directly connected to the Gas South Convention Center, recently expanded and revamped with a $300 million renovation. The hotel has 26,000 square feet of its own meeting and conference space.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports the hotel has already booked $5 million worth of group and corporate business, with roughly 30% of that new to the county. Standard room rates start at $224.

Gwinnett County and CBRE are working together to redevelop the decaying Gwinnett Place Mall.

The county bought most of the Gwinnett Place Mall property for $23 million in April 2021. In February 2023, Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners approved a plan to redevelop the mall, voting to partner with CBRE on the project.

Most of the mall — with the exception of the Macy’s, Beauty Master and Mega Mart anchors — will be demolished, and the property will be redeveloped as a mix of new retail, a cultural center, green space and residential uses.

The former Sears anchor is privately owned by a luxury apartment developer who is expected to tear it down and build new housing.

The 20-year plan for the property has called for the property to get between 2,700 and 3,800 residential units, 55,000 square feet of new retail space, 50,000-square-foot of commercial office space, 12 acres of park space and a 50,000-square-foot cultural center.

While golf experienced a shot in the arm during the Covid pandemic, several clubs are facing the reality of the need to renovate their dated facilities. The Country Club of Gwinnett is scheduled to be sold at an online auction on March 20. Bidding is scheduled to begin March 18. The starting bid is $650,000, per the listing.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports the Country Club of Gwinnett will be sold on the Ten-X Commercial online auction platform. Terence Vanek of Leisure Investment Properties Group is the listing agent for the property.

The semi-private course, which covers more than 180 acres, has a full-service golf shop and practice facilities, including a driving range, putting green and practice bunker.

Other amenities at the club include the Grille Room restaurant in the clubhouse and a banquet facility that can accommodate up to 100 people for business and private events.

(Correction—The original story incorrectly stated that the course was closing. The course is open for business.)

The Gwinnett County Commission will have a new chairman next month, but the woman who will hold the county’s top post will start her term knowing voters rejected her preferred plan to expand transit into the fast-growing Atlanta suburb.

It is unlikely county residents will be asked to vote on another transit referendum, and a corresponding sales tax increase, in two years after this year’s measure lost by a thin margin, incoming Gwinnett Commission Chairman Nicole Love Hendrickson told Bisnow last week.

That also means one of the potential uses for the OFS Brightwave facility off Jimmy Carter Boulevard, which the county purchased in late 2018 for more than $32M, is off the table for now as well.

Courtesy of Nicole Love Hendrickson

Incoming Gwinnett County Commission Chair Nicole Love Hendrickson says it’s time to take another look at proposed transportation plans.

The referendum called for a penny sales tax increase for 30 years to raise more than $12B to expand Gwinnett County’s transit system. Gwinnett voters voted against the tax by just over 1,000 votes on Nov. 3. Hendrickson, who beat her Republican challenger, David Post, on Election Day, will succeed Chairwoman Charlotte Nash on Dec. 28.

“At this point, the citizens have spoken. We have to listen to what the citizens are saying,” Hendrickson said. “I think we have to take a step back first and examine what we proposed.”

Ackerman & Co. Retail President Leo Wiener said the county needs to study the reasons why the latest effort failed before pushing for another referendum, especially since Democrats — the party backing the MARTA tax — earned more votes overall than Republicans this year.

Proponents were confident the latest transit referendum would pass, given Gwinnett’s increased population and demographic shifts and the vote occurring in a general presidential election, which would draw many more voters than off-year or special elections. But those factors failed to turn the tide.

“I think a deep dive is really necessary before we come back,” said Wiener, who also is chairman of the Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District and a commercial real estate owner in the county. “Being that close to me is a huge upset and not at all expected.”

MARTA heavy rail at the North Avenue Station in Atlanta.

Most agree that transit in some form is needed in Gwinnett, the second-most-populous county in Georgia with more than 900,000 residents. By 2040, experts project that the county’s population could reach 1.5 million.

But the coronavirus pandemic has created a sea change in the views of working from home and commuting to an office, and that could influence demand for transit moving forward.

“We also have to look at how COVID is impacting that congestion, how teleworking and how companies are now pivoting to address this teleworking space,” Hendrickson said.

“There are also other possibilities and factors that we should consider: like the impact telecommuting will have on congestion, and we should also look at the future of technological advances in transit, like connected and autonomous vehicles, which offer promise on how we move around and connect throughout the county,” Hendrickson wrote in a follow-up email.

Wiener said the pandemic’s influence on commuting patterns is something to be considered. But transit projects, especially heavy rail, are long-term investments that could take close to a decade to complete. And Gwinnett’s growth projections are not likely to change in a post-pandemic world.

“Pre-pandemic, it was on everybody’s checklist. But do [companies] want it now? Or is Microsoft and others saying, ‘Oh gee, you can go live in the lower cost of living place like Gwinnett.’ I think it’s still too early to know,” Wiener said. “What’s not going to change is the county is growing and projected to grow, and congestion on the streets is going to grow.”

This is the fourth time in history that Gwinnett residents rejected the expansion of MARTA into the county. In addition to the 2019 referendum, voters also rejected rail proposals in 1971 and 1990.

There could be many reasons for the referendum’s loss in this election. It was among two penny sales tax measures being voted on. The other, a penny sales tax to fund public school projects, was a renewal of an existing sales tax, but Hendrickson said that may have been confusing to voters. She also said the referendum being so far down the ballot may have failed to gain voters’ attention.

“We’re in a pandemic. And people are struggling, we’re recovering from a recession. The thought of having extra taxes put on your property tax bill or even your sales tax bill, it didn’t appease everybody,” Hendrickson said. “It was just timing.”

Bisnow Archive

The OFS corporate sign in front of its Norcross facility overlooking Interstate 85

While it was to be independently run, the county had a provision to run heavy MARTA rail from Doraville to the Jimmy Carter Boulevard corridor, possibly at a planned multimodal hub at the OFS facility.

“We knew the referendum would be close,” Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District Executive Director Joe Allen wrote in an email to Bisnow. “I’m hopeful that mobility options will continue to be a top of mind issue for the newly elected Commissioners and a solution will be presented that Gwinnettians can fully support sometime in the future.”

Hendrickson said the loss of the transit measure may mean the county commission will need to be choosy on what projects it approves, including possibly revisiting the nearly two-year-old Gwinnett 2040 Unified Plan, a consolidated vision for the future of the county’s growth that tied together a proposed comprehensive transportation plan, housing, economic development and land use, including identifying high-density and lower-density areas and expected growth patterns.

“Managing the growth of our county is very important to me and will be critical for our future. We will have to revisit our Unified Plan which many of the policies in the plan aim to aid in the growth of our county,” she said in an email. “We would have to take a look at a redevelopment model that includes more urban environments and we already have the infrastructure along the I-85 corridor to support this model.”

While one potential use for the OFS facility is off the table for now, county officials say the 2018 purchase was never solely about transit, but more about holding a prime parcel for economic development in county control. County officials said lease payments from OFS, which continues to operate at the facility, as well as film and television production use there, will help the county meet the debt service moving forward.

“I am not sure the source of the idea that we acquired this property as a site for a transit hub,” Nash said. “The possibility of using a portion of the property for a transit facility was a side benefit, not the fundamental purpose for purchasing over 100 acres at a critical gateway to Gwinnett.”

The field in the race for the Gwinnett County Commission chairmanship seat this November has been narrowed to two candidates who offer starkly different paths for the future of one of Georgia’s most populous counties.

Courtesy of Nicole Love Hendrickson

Incoming Gwinnett County Commission Chair Nicole Love Hendrickson says it’s time to take another look at proposed transportation plans.

Earlier this month, Nicole Love Hendrickson secured the Democratic nomination for the Gwinnett commission chairmanship after her opponent, Lee Thompson, ceded the race despite a pending runoff. David Post secured the Republican nomination in the primary last month.

Now the two will face off for the seat that Charlotte Nash has held since a 2011 special election, chairing a body that has been controlled by Republicans since former Chairman Lillian Webb’s election in 1985.

In interviews with Bisnow, Post and Hendrickson offered insights into their views on various growth and development issues in Gwinnett, which is on track to become the state’s most populous county, with 1.5 million residents projected by 2040.

Post said he was opposed to approving additional residential density, while Hendrickson said she sees it as a way to help improve the county’s housing affordability. 

“If you talk to the people in Gwinnett County, I think you’re going to find out they feel there are enough apartments,” Post said. “There is a point where it not only affects traffic but it also affects the quality of life and the quality of the county.”

Hendrickson, who until recently was Gwinnett’s community outreach director, sees a place for density in the form of mixed-use projects for more affordable housing stock.

“I’m 100% for mixed-use development and also that it’s affordable, but not at the expense of eliminating green space,” she said. “We’re going to have to start building up, and we’re going to have to start building more, denser living spaces.”

Bisnow

Outgoing Gwinnett County Commission Chair Charlotte Nash.

The two candidates also differed on how the county should respond to the coronavirus pandemic, especially given that Gwinnett has been one of the hardest-hit counties in the state, with nearly 12,000 total cases and at least 185 deaths, according to the state Department of Public Health. Post said businesses need to be left to decide how best to handle social distancing and other anti-pandemic efforts.

“I think some of the media has overblown the virus. Everybody has different numbers,” Post said. “People have said, ‘Oh, the restaurants need to be closed but the liquor stores need to be open.’ I don’t know. We need to develop a priority list, if that is our responsibility. Or is it the responsibility of the business owners? Business owners need to make decisions on whether they can or are willing to work under certain restrictions.”

But with new coronavirus cases on the rise, Hendrickson said the commission needs to consider requiring more residents and businesses to prevent the spread, including encouraging residents to wear face masks and imposing penalties on businesses that don’t enforce social distancing measures.

“It’s unacceptable that Gwinnett County is leading the state in coronavirus cases, and I do not believe it’s because more people are getting tested. The spikes are due to behavior,” Hendrickson said. “While I realize that this is all about self-responsibility, I also think there are things the government can do to get the message out with the intention to make sure our residents are safe and healthy. There will be no economy if we can’t get [the pandemic] under control, basically. You can never be too cautious with something that is killing people.”

The two greatly differed on MARTA’s proposed expansion into the county. Hendrickson supported the plan that would raise local sales taxes to extend heavy rail from MARTA’s existing system to a new station created at the OFS facility off Jimmy Carter Boulevard. Hendrickson said the lack of mass transit has been a hindrance to Gwinnett’s economic development.

“What company would want to come into the county and their workforce can’t even get in because of traffic?” she said. “Mobility is very key to attracting businesses here, and MARTA is the way to do that.”

Gwinnett voters previously rejected MARTA’s expansion into the county, including in 2019, when a failed referendum would have added 1.5 cents to the sales tax to fund it. County officials nonetheless are pushing for another ballot initiative in the November election.

The commission last month approved a transit plan that would include heavy rail and a rapid bus system operated by MARTA. The commission has until the end of July to approve the ballot measure for voters in November.

But unlike Hendrickson, Post — a career corporate security and productivity consultant — is wholly against MARTA heavy rail expansion into the county. Officials estimate a cost of $200M to $300M per mile to expand heavy rail into the county.

“It’s too expensive. We’re not in a financial position to have our kids or grandkids to pay for it,” Post said, adding that MARTA doesn’t generate any profit.

MARTA, the eighth-largest public transit system in the country by ridership, has run a balanced budget for nine consecutive years.

“There is not a transit system anywhere that I know of that is profitable. It doesn’t make sense to me. And I don’t think it makes sense to the citizens, either,” he said.

Bisnow

Gwinnett Place Mall in suburban Atlanta was one of the sites where Stranger Things’ third season was filmed.

But Post and Hendrickson did not disagree on all issues central to Gwinnett’s commercial real estate industry. They both said the use of eminent domain to force the owner of the Gwinnett Place Mall to sell should be a last resort.

“Once all other avenues are exhausted,  and I don’t know that they have been … then [eminent domain] would be the likely option,” Post said. “I am not sure what options the board has looked at, but, in my communications with the [Gwinnett Community Improvement District] there has been very little, if anything, done. There are options for the mall, and I would be garnering cooperation in order to get something started.”

Eminent domain has a long tradition in the United States, where public entities are able to compel private landowners to sell for a project that is deemed in the public good. Often those are major infrastructure projects, such as new or widened roads or new government facilities and sports stadiums. But some municipalities nationwide have sought to use eminent domain to force the redevelopment of ailing malls and retail centers in their jurisdictions.

Las Vegas-based Moonbeam Capital purchased the main, 562K SF enclosed retail portion of the 1.3M SF mall from foreclosure in 2013, and despite numerous promises for a grand redevelopment, its tenure as owner has been met with frustration from local business groups like the Gwinnett Place CID and Partnership Gwinnett.

The most recent example of public lament over the mall’s stewardship came from Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District Chairman Leo Wiener during a June 30 Bisnow webinar, when he highlighted how Gwinnett Place Mall dropped from a peak taxable value of more than $100M to now roughly $10M.

“The current owner clearly has demonstrated they don’t have any interest in redeveloping the mall, never had an interest, not going to have an interest,” said Wiener, who also is the retail president of Ackerman & Co. “I don’t see why eminent domain isn’t on the board. We need to have that blowing-up dynamite party, in which the whole thing implodes and something better comes about.”

Hendrickson expressed skepticism that eminent domain would be a prudent choice of action, worried that its use would deter other companies from doing business in the county in the future.

“That one is a tricky one,” Hendrickson said. “Because they still are property owners and do we want to set a precedent to do that?”

“I think we need to work with Moonbeam, and I think we need to find a way to collaborate on what we will do with that space,” she added. “I don’t want to commit to using eminent domain to get them out of there.”

In response to a follow-up email from Bisnow, Hendrickson said she is open to a number of other efforts to persuade Moonbeam to either redevelop or sell the mall of its own volition, including prohibiting Moonbeam from further using the mall as a film and television site (the third season of Netflix’s Stranger Things was largely filmed in the mall), extending redevelopment overlay district zoning ordinances to cover the mall property, strengthening code enforcement policies and holding Moonbeam to a higher standard of operation.

“If they [Moonbeam] don’t comply, then we would essentially have some basis for compliance or having them moved out or shut down,” she said.