Years later, it’s still a shopping magnet

He built the open-air center with 6,000 parking spots, an auditorium for community events, a grocery store and a delivery tunnel that made for a quiet shopping experience.

But what Lenox Square and Buckhead would become was beyond his wildest dreams.

Lenox, at 50 years old, is at the heart of a wealthy commercial district punctuated by office, hotel and residential towers. Major interstate highways crisscross nearby.

Some say Lenox made Buckhead the commercial engine it is today, although others say it created a development frenzy that left the surrounding area traffic-choked and unwalkable.

What may be more impressive is Lenox’s staying power as a shopping magnet.

At a time when many malls struggle to stay full of retailers and draw shoppers, Lenox thrums with activity and has a waiting list of tenants.

“The fact that it’s lived to fifty years old is very unusual in the world of retail,” said Ellen Dunham-Jones, a professor in the College of Architecture at Georgia Institute of Technology. “Most malls only have about a 20- to 25-year lifespan.”

Trips to Lenox are embedded in the memories of many longtime Atlantans and Georgians. Many a prom dress, tuxedo and wedding band were bought there.

“I remember my grandmother taking me to Brooks Brothers when I was six years old,” said Ben Carter, who went on to become the developer of the Mall of Georgia and Streets of Buckhead.

As the grande dame of Atlanta malls — and the first — Lenox is on its sixth facelift. It was enclosed in 1972, and it’s now sized at 1.6 million square feet, making it one of the largest malls in the Southeast. A walkway connects it to a Marriott Hotel and two MARTA stations are nearby.

Like the Baby Boomers who have taken to Facebook and Twitter, Lenox management has kept the mall hip, keeping on top of the latest trends and social changes.

Opened the same year buses in Atlanta were desegregated, the mall will soon have a men’s boutique called The Rowdy Collection, with clothes designed by hip-hop producer Dallas Austin.

Top sales, good upkeep

And money talks: Lenox Square is among the top-selling malls in the country, with sales of $700 per square foot, according to Rick Sokolov, president of Simon Property Group, Lenox’s owner.

Most other malls with that spending pedigree are within a chauffeured drive of Manhattan or Beverly Hills, or in glitzy tourist enclaves. U.S. News & World Report in June listed the top U.S. malls as the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, with $1,400 in sales per square foot, and Ala Moana in Honolulu, with $1,125 in sales per square foot. Lenox would be eighth based on Sokolov’s figure.

Catherine Ross, director of the Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development at Georgia Tech, said adapting is the crux of Lenox’s success.

“Lenox has steadily expanded to correspond to what is happening in metro Atlanta,” she said, in terms of pricing flexibility, styles and population diversity.

“I think it’s tapped the vein of the urban, Atlanta metro market.”

Former Atlanta Mayor Sam Massell, president of the Buckhead Coalition, said another key is upkeep.

“Lenox was first class when it was built, and it’s first class today,” he said.

He credited the mall’s three owners — first Noble Properties, then Corporate Property Investors and now Simon Property Group — with constantly reinvesting in the mall.

Over time, Lenox added not only a roof and air conditioning but a fourth floor. Anchor stores evolved from Davison’s and Rich’s to Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s.

Simon recently spent $53 million expanding Neiman-Marcus by 52,000 square feet and adding a second level to the luxury wing with new shops like Zara and Calvin Klein.

For the well-heeled, there’s also Cartier, Bvlgari, Coach and Louis Vuitton. For the mainstream, there’s Gap, the Icing and Wet Seal. For the trendy, there’s Ed Hardy and Madewell.

Atlanta’s prominence in the Southeast is also a key.

In 1972, Stanley Marcus explained why he chose Atlanta for the sixth location of Neiman-Marcus.

“It is similar to central Texas cities in climate and in the general background of the people,” he said. “It is a hub of a wheel for many small surrounding communities. We expect to bring people to the Atlanta Neiman-Marcus from 200 and 300 miles away.”

To this day, 40 percent of the mall’s sales come from more than 100 miles away.

A well-heeled neighbor

Lenox is across from another Atlanta fixture, Phipps Plaza, the 822,000 square foot mall built in 1968. Both malls are now owned by Simon.

Tisha Maley, the head of leasing for the two malls, says that while both have luxury components, they attract different shoppers.

“The luxury customer at Lenox is much more aspirational,” Maley said – a nice way of suggesting they are into brands that impress, such as Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren and Burberry, or the hottest gadgets, such as iPhones.

The more discerning Phipps shopper, she said, wants to make a fashion statement but isn’t so worried about a recognizable brand.

Maley said there is a waiting list for certain types of retailers at Lenox.

Going forward, however, some question how the struggles of department stores, as well as online retailing, will affect giant malls like Lenox that rely on foot traffic to drive sales.

Simon’s Sokolov brushed off that concern.

“Shoppers walk into stores with coupons from the Web site, and they already know what they want. But maybe they want to see the color or touch the fabric,” he said.

Sokolov said no new anchors or expansions are planned for Lenox, though he said it would be considered if a retailer was interested.

“It’s one of our best malls,” said Sokolov, “and we’re committed to maintaining it.”

‘Awful’ impact on area

Lenox Square does have critics – if not of the mall itself, then of the development it spawned in the surrounding area.

“What it produced is awful,” said Richard Dagenhart, associate professor of architecture and urban design at Georgia Tech. “You can’t walk anywhere. You can’t get from Lenox to Phipps. You can’t drive to the place. It’s crazy.”

Instead of following a master growth plan, he said, the Lenox area was designed through “traffic engineering standards” and carved into “super blocks’” for major developments. Despite nearby MARTA stations, streets aren’t walkable, he said.

“The transformation is going to have to come by putting in streets and blocks at a size that is an urban size to make a city out of it,” he suggested.

Mall operators, he said, “are going to have to realize what they’re doing is building cities, not leasable space for chain stores. I think there’s a great opportunity for Lenox and that part of Buckhead to be an extraordinary place.”

Paco Underhill, author of two best-selling books on retailing including “Call of the Mall,” said Buckhead epitomizes “the modern American edge city.”

He believes the future of malls like Lenox are to add more services, like the Colonial grocery store and post office Lenox had when it opened 50 years ago.

“Maybe it should start looking at what it was to learn what it should be,” Underhill said. “Old is often new.”

How We Got The Story

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reviewed archives owned by Simon Property Group that were passed down from the two prior owners of Lenox Square. The newspaper also interviewed native Atlantans, the mall’s operators and experts about Lenox’s place in city history and impact on Buckhead development.