Update: Most Atlanta area malls will not reopen Friday after all
Lenox Square and at least eight other malls and shopping centers in the Atlanta region plan to reopen Friday, the latest sign of businesses reviving after the coronavirus shutdown.
Lenox Square will open on a reduced schedule, General Manager Robin Suggs said in an email to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Other malls in the area owned by Simon Property Group, including Phipps Plaza, Mall of Georgia, Town Center at Cobb and Sugarloaf Mills in Gwinnett County, will also open, Suggs said.
All of the Simon malls will open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. They have been closed since March 18.
The common-area sections of Lenox Square may be open Friday, but some stores may remain closed. Jacqueline King, a spokeswoman for Macy’s Inc., which owns Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, declined to comment whether the stores would reopen.
“As we plan to reopen, we are looking at a number of factors including state and local government ordinances,” King said in an emailed statement. “We anticipate that not all stores will reopen at once, with openings staggered based on geographic recoveries.”
Neiman Marcus, the other anchor tenant at Lenox, did not respond to requests for comment.
Ponce City Market, the former Sears catalog warehouse in the Old Fourth Ward that’s been converted to retail and offices, plans to reopen in mid-May, a spokeswoman said in an email.
Three other malls in the region will also reopen Friday: Greenbriar Mall in southwest Atlanta, Arbor Place in Douglasville and Georgia Square Mall in Athens. They will have reduced schedules, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.
The newspaper could not ascertain the status of several other Atlanta-area malls. Three malls owned by Brookfield Properties — Perimeter Mall, Cumberland Mall and North Point Mall — each says on its website that it remains closed due to COVID-19.
