Courtesy of Lulah Hills
Herbert Ames had to pause. Standing before television cameras behind a glass podium on June 26—demolition day for North DeKalb Mall—the managing director of Edens properties needed a moment. Before the excavator clawed into the former Rich’s white brick facade, Ames gathered himself. In preparation for Lulah Hills, the new mixed-use development set to replace the property, Ames and his team gathered stories from residents on the meaning of metro Atlanta’s first indoor mall.
“Hundreds of stories. Stories of first jobs, first dates. Stories that last a lifetime. It was,” he confesses, “emotional.”
For more than 20 years, North DeKalb has wrestled with the redesign of the mall. Ames, a native of Florence, South Carolina and a ten-year Atlanta resident, has tried to align these stories with goals of sustainability, connectivity, and vibrancy. At the podium, Ames caught himself thinking too of stories from his own team. They sacrificed quiet evenings with their families, baseball practices, and piano recitals to sit in zoning meetings and long calls after hours. Was it worth it?
Courtesy of Lulah Hills
“There are two ways of doing real estate,” Ames explains. The right way takes time. It requires executing the right design and right aesthetic but above all to enrich the community.
Will Lulah Hills and its 2.5 million-square-foot campus with 320,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 1,700 multifamily units, 100 townhomes, and a 150 room hotel enrich North DeKalb? Time will tell.
Courtesy of Lulah Hills
When North DeKalb Center opened in July 1965, it promised air conditioning and poinsettias at Christmas, lilies at Easter, and chrysanthemums for football season. Lord Jim, starring Peter O’Toole, premiered at its theater (which remains open). That spring, the first U.S. Marines set foot in Vietnam as Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov took the first step in outer space. Days before North DeKalb Center opened, U.S. astronaut Ed White followed in Aleski’s footsteps. America and Atlanta had entered a new age. Before long North DeKalb Center became North DeKalb Mall, then Market Square, and North DeKalb Mall again. As the calendar turned Y2K, the mall became what retail archaeologist and YouTuber Dan Bell calls a “Dead Mall” or “Ghost Mall” and doubled as a movie and television set for projects like Cobra Kai and Zombieland 2, among others. With its demolition, an era has come to an end.
“Over the last five years,” Ames says, “across the country, we [lost] 150 malls.”
With such rapid change, what stories will people tell of Lulah Hills in a hundred years?
“Things will come and go,” Ames says, “but this will still be an amazing place, an amazing neighborhood that continues to evolve and gives pride to everyone in the community.”
Courtesy of Lulah Hills
Courtesy of Lulah Hills
In a statement, Edens says that the demolition of the North DeKalb Mall site will take 6 months to complete and plans to open the first retail components in 2026, although no stores or restaurants have yet been announced. The AMC theater will stay open while also undergoing a renovation, and the on-site Marshalls and Golden Corral will also remain open.
Courtesy of Lulah Hills
Courtesy of Lulah Hills
Courtesy of Lulah Hills
Lulah Hills, Ames says, will honor the mall and what has come before. On these grounds, along the banks of the South Fork Peachtree Creek, the Muscogee tribe drew water from the same source where farm boys from Sherman’s 16th and 23rd regiments later dipped their canteens. Here was fecund farmland. Colonial Grocery and later Big Star opened its doors here. E.T. phoned home. For here once stood a mall, now, blasted into air. When asked how the past will be made present in the future at Lulah Hills, Ames pauses and with a lilt in his voice says: “Stay tuned.”
Correction 8/19/24: This story previously erroneously stated that Ames was from Columbia, South Carolina, not Florence. It has also been updated to reflect that Ames said 150 malls had closed in the past five years, not each year.
