The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday spent more than $16 million to buy two Macy’s buildings — a department store and a furniture store — and 23 surrounding acres of the mostly vacant Gwinnett Place Mall, where a large mixed-use development is planned.
Macy’s will lease its stores back through early next year, but then they will close, said Nicole Love Hendrickson, the county commission chairwoman. The buildings total more than 293,000 square feet.
“It just offers a prime opportunity for us,” Hendrickson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “This just gives us greater flexibility with the concept.”
Macy’s in February announced it was closing about 150 stores nationwide. Around that time, the company reached out to Gwinnett’s economic development office about a sale, Hendrickson said.
The five-member Gwinnett County Commission, comprised of four Democrats and one Republican, voted unanimously on the purchase, which will be financed through taxable revenue bonds at an interest rate of 7% or less.
The purchase price is $16.5 million, but the cost of issuing the bonds brings the county’s total spending to a maximum of $18 million, officials said. Annual debt payments will not exceed $1.71 million over 20 years, the county’s finance director, Buffy Alexzulian, told commissioners.
Gwinnett County three years ago bought 39 acres of the 90-acre mall site, including a Belk store, for $23 million.
The county commission last year approved a redevelopment concept for the property including seven multifamily residential buildings, a cultural activity center, offices, stores and a park. In that concept, three box stores — Macy’s, Beauty Master and Mega Mart — retained ownership of their properties and parking lots. Most of the mall is slated for demolition.
The Macy’s site links the mall to a bus transit hub west of the property that is being upgraded and expanded. Future use of the land and buildings will depend on what developers propose, Hendrickson said.
The purchase is expected to close in November.
Gwinnett Place opened in 1984 and fueled a boom in the nearby Duluth area, transforming it into the county’s unofficial downtown. But the mall began to decline around the turn of the millennium. More recently, it achieved newfound fame as the set of pivotal scenes in “Stranger Things,” a Netflix supernatural thriller heavy with 1980s nostalgia.
The county plans to start searching for a developer for the revitalization project early next year, according to a news release. CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm, is helping refine the plan.
“We’re committed to the redevelopment of, not just the mall, but the surrounding community,” Hendrickson said.
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