NHL in Alpharetta? Here’s the redevelopment vision for North Point Mall.

In an effort to bring professional hockey back to the Atlanta market, a development team aims to effectively turn North Point Mall into something resembling the Battery at Truist Park.

Jamestown Properties and New York Life submitted a rezoning application Tuesday for the Alpharetta mall. The development team aims to raze the outdated shopping mall and transform it into a massive mixed-use district centered around a 20,000-seat arena — one large enough to suit an NHL franchise.

The application shows that in addition to the proposed arena, the developers envision a 4,000-seat music hall and performing arts center, a 2,000-seat community hockey rink, a 500-seat movie theater, hotels, office spaces, restaurants, apartment buildings and retail spaces. If approved, it’ll have the potential to become one of metro Atlanta’s largest live-work-play districts.

“Today’s filing is an important milestone in advancing our plan to transform North Point Mall into a modern, sports-anchored district that sets a new standard for suburban placemaking,” Frances Bohn, director of development and construction for Jamestown in North America, said in a news release.

This is a rendering of a proposed mixed-use redevelopment of North Point Mall in Alpharetta. In addition to the proposed hockey arena, the developers envision a 4,000-seat music hall and performing arts center, a community hockey rink, a movie theater, hotels, office spaces, restaurants, apartment buildings and retail spaces. (Courtesy of Jamestown Properties)

The project, however, is skating ahead of the puck. The NHL has not committed to giving the Atlanta area another team after the Flames and Thrashers both came and left.

Instead, the NHL informed its team owners that if the league expanded beyond its 32 teams, the franchise fees would be at least $2 billion.

Regardless, the North Point Mall redevelopment bid is quickly gaining steam, vying with a separate NHL-recruitment effort further north in Forsyth County. That project is called the Gathering at South Forsyth and received its local government approval last summer.

In September, league deputy commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN that both Atlanta bids were “aspirational” and needed a plan that’s “a little more actionable than where we currently are.” But that was before the recent formation of the Jamestown and New York Life partnership.

Kathi Cook, the community development director for Alpharetta, confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the city has received the rezoning application for North Point Mall. It will trigger a Development of Regional Impact analysis, which is a required infrastructure study for large projects.

North Point Mall was one of the largest indoor shopping malls in the country when it opened in 1993. It sits on a 100-acre site in Alpharetta, an affluent city 30 minutes north of Atlanta that has undergone a development and population boom in recent decades.

The mall like many others is pivoting after the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of e-commerce disrupted the business model of regional shopping centers. New York Life in 2021 acquired the mall, and has considered multiple mixed-use redevelopment plans in the years since.

Jamestown’s plan includes 1,385 apartments, nearly twice as many rentable units as permitted in Alpharetta code. This and a request for building heights taller than four stories require conditional use permits from the City Council.

This is a site map of a proposed mixed-use redevelopment of North Point Mall in Alpharetta. (Courtesy of the City of Alpharetta)

The rest of the site plan includes 907,000 square feet of retail and dining spaces, which is only a small decrease from the 1.3 million square feet currently included in North Point Mall. The development also includes 16 acres of parks, plazas and trails alongside three hotels that combine to offer 850 rooms.

It also includes 750,000 square feet of office space, which would be one of the largest new workplace projects to join metro Atlanta since the COVID-19 pandemic upended the market.