Q: I saw an article that said something about Murder Kroger. I’m interested in finding out what Murder Kroger is, and where it is.
—Jan Owens, Dunwoody
A: That unfortunate label was placed on the Kroger at 725 Ponce de Leon Ave. sometime after the first murder occurred in the store's parking lot in 1991.
Eleven years later, a body was found there.
In March 2015, just four months after a Kroger official told 90.1 FM WABE that the company wanted that location to be known as the Beltline Kroger, a construction worker was shot and killed outside the store.
And if there’s guilt by association, in 2012, a college student was killed in the adjacent Ford Factory Lofts, just across that same parking lot.
The nickname has inspired a song – “Murder Kroger” — by a band called Attractive Eighties Women and has its own not-so-official Facebook page (
).
Murder Kroger won’t be around much longer.
The AJC reported earlier this year that the store, which was built in 1986, will be demolished and replaced by a new building in a mixed-used project called 725 Ponce.
The new 60,000-square-foot Kroger will have an entrance directly on the Beltline and the building will include 900 parking spaces.
And perhaps even a new nickname.
More on the Municipal Auditorium
My recent column on the Municipal Auditorium brought back memories for Atlanta’s W. Reid Whitaker, who said he saw the St. Louis Hawks play an exhibition game there and attended the monthly “All Night Sings,” which starred gospel music pioneer Wally Fowler.
“I went every month,” Whitaker wrote. “And, the City League basketball tournament was played there. (I) saw that at least one year.”
Laura Drummond, founder and principal of Atlanta Preservation and Planning Services, emailed to remind me that the building’s auditorium was demolished in the early 1980s and that area was turned into a plaza and a parking deck by Georgia State.
The former armory is now Dahlberg Hall.
“There is a small auditorium inside this building, which unfortunately some people mistakenly believe was the City Auditorium,” Drummond wrote.
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