Comments on: Perimeter Mall; Dunwoody, Georgia

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:38:58 +0000

Atlanta has 3 stores that show up in malls from out of nowhere. Skillz, Know Style, and Trio.

Skillz is super tacky, with god-awful hip-hop clothing that is SO out of place in Perimeter Mall. I just noticed that they’ve popped into Mall of Georgia too. Horrible.

Trio shows up in every metro mall. They’ve shown up in Lenox, Phipps, Perimeter, North Point, Town Center at Cobb, etc. They sell handbags. Don’t ever try to call one of their stores – the number is always disconnected. I think they come in and take over the leases of stores that have recently closed and serve the remainder of the term. They jump around all the time, even within the same mall. Strange. No website either.

Know Style is a womens clothing store. I have no idea who owns them, but they also pop up in every metro mall. They popped up in Lenox one time on the main corridor and everyone in the Atlanta retail community caused a stink about it. How could Simon lease such a high-profile (former Ralph Lauren) store to a cheesy local retailer? They soon closed.

Skillz is the worst though. The fact that they are in Perimeter is frustrating.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:30:57 +0000

Up until the conversion of the original Macy’s to Bloomingdale’s in 2003, there was a large, submerged “pond” water feature on level one just outside the Macy’s, where the corridor leading to Nordstrom began. As I recall, this “pond” was designed to look like a natural water feature, with real rocks and boulders around the periphery, and a “stream” trickling into it, and lush greenery. This feature (no doubt a pain for mall management – I recall signs asking patrons to please NOT throw coins in) was eliminated and the floor paved over just before the conversion to Bloomie’s. I’d guess Bloomie’s made sure this happened – to help faciliate shopper access to the converted store’s first level and cosmetics department. This area now offers table seating – a quieter alternative to the noisy food court.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:01:02 +0000

Does anyone know when, how, and why the Federal Bake Shop dried up and closed at Perimeter? I grew up in Atlanta, but had moved away. On one of my return visits it was gone! Best I can tell it happened sometime in the mid-80’s I was heartbroken when that happened. I haven’t tasted a bakery like that since. I also got my first dog at the Docktor pet store right outside where Federal Bake Shop used to be…

By: Justin Hill

Justin Hill — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:33:49 +0000

Hey, Jonah, if you want to know why SKILLZ is located at Perimiter Mall, I read somewhere that it is an inner city fashion specialty store.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:25:45 +0000

LOL there’s a store named Skillz. XD

By: Rich

Rich — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 03:16:52 +0000

There were buildings in Alpharetta without tenants for quite a long time during this decade and IT people who were delivering phone books.With the loss of GM and Ford and the decline of Delta, bell South and others, Atlanta’s smalll blue collar base probably has suffered as much or more than most industrial cities.

Not all of the troubled retail in Atlanta is in poor areas. Greenbriar serves a well-off area and gentrifying suburbs. Cumberland draws low income shoppers but is close to wealthy areas and in the middle of solidly middle class suburbs. North DeKalb is near Druid Hills and highly gentrified areas, but seems unable to capitalize on this. Toco Hills, a redone 50s strip, which serves much the same area is in much better shape. Northlake serves a solidly middle class area and except for some of the anchors and the food court, it’s in trouble. The big box nearby does better. Luxury Phipps has had vacancy problems and has wound up with a bizarre collection of tenants–Tiffany’s and a big cheesy dental clinic. Atlanta is just a good example of too much homogenized retail, and after years of attracting wealth, it’s losing it even as it adds people.

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:04:28 +0000

Lol its Nordtrom.

By: Steven Swain

Steven Swain — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:30:22 +0000

Bloomingdale’s starts, price and quality wise, where Macy’s leaves off. There’s more current fashion, there are far more restaurants and food concessions, the furniture and housewares are more contemporary and the stores themselves have an unmistakable look. The older stores have a very 1970s look and feel, while the newest stores and the 59th and Lex flagship feel very upmarket and modern.

By: Dante

Dante — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:33:59 +0000

To be fair, Rich, most of the dead and dying malls you mention are in poorer parts of the city. Yeah, the malls in Dekalb are in trouble. There are more rough neighborhoods than nice neighborhoods there now. The same could be said for Cumberland. Lenox, Phipps Plaza, Perimeter, Mall of Georgia, Discover Mills, North Point, and those newish outdoor malls in Norcross and Forsyth are all doing well and they’re all within about 30 or so miles of each other. North Point does have a vacant anchor but it’s set up for 6 and I just don’t think there are 6 these days. The missing anchor doesn’t seem to affect the foot traffic.

A lot of manufacturing is dying in Atlanta and Delta is also struggling mightily but that IT sector you mention in Alpharetta is alive and well. My cousin and brother just ditched their current IT jobs for higher paying ones there. I get frequent calls asking if I’m interested in IT jobs in Alpharetta (mostly from recruiters who don’t know it’s 50 miles in heavy traffic from where I live). The only people getting really hurt by the IT sector in Alpharetta are those without experience of some kind. It is a bad time to be entry level there or anywhere.

Back to the main point, I used to shop primarily at North Point and Perimeter back when I lived in the area. I always liked North Point better. It was a little closer to me though. I think if the distances were reversed, I’d probably have preferred Perimeter, especially after the North Point Babbages turned into a Hello Kitty store. Perimeter is a very nice mall. It is kind of obvious that it’s been added onto more than once, but that doesn’t detract from the mall in any way. The mall hasn’t been Simonized so there are still a few unique shops there last I checked but not as many as there used to be. The mall area is atrocious though. It’s really hard to make your way north and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the street layout or the placement of mall-area shopping centers.

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:54:52 +0000

Atlanta is full of dead and dying malls. North DeKalb is being redone as a not quite lifestyle place. It probably would make more sense as non-retail. Greenbriar has been hurt by a nearby power center. The other southside malls are in trouble. Cumberland has not done that well since the remodel and despite the high volume Rich’s, South DeKalb hasn’t seemed that busy. The Atlanta arae continues to grow, but the new jobs don’t pay as wellas the old ones. The IT sector dried up earlier in this decade which hurt North Point. Delta has cut back, although the cuts were more evident outside of Atlanta, in the beginning and merger with Northwest might help, although putting together two airlines with terrible customer service isn’t a great business startegy (example—my last Delta flight involved multiple delays and when the plane arrived, it was the wrong aircraft). Coca-Cola went through cutbacks (unheard of for them) and the last big unionized industrial emplyers have been shuttered (Ford & GM), along with two military facilities. Building low wage jobs and losing, stable well-paying ones is not the best climate for new malls, but the developer-friendly (and developer-bought) suburban jurisdictions have meant taht development often outstrips reality. The housing market was hit early and hard in Atlanta, esp. in outlying areas.