Village Square Shopping Center and American Fare: Stone Mountain, GA

Thanks to a fan of the site, some footage was found from 1979 showing Village Square Shopping Center. With a little detective work, we located it and I set out to find it and see just how it looked today. While not much physically has changed today, it is by far a shell of its former self. So is the highway that it sits on. One of the more depressing events to cover in retail is the fall of a principal retail corridor due to issues of competition, white flight, planned obsolescence and the effects of its own age. In this case, the highway is Memorial Drive (Ga. 10), which I have covered bits and pieces of on Sky City.

Memorial Drive was one of Atlanta's first suburban retail corridors starting with the opening of Belvedere Plaza in 1956. This would soon be followed by Columbia Mall in 1964 with the growth of retail strip shopping centers spreading eastward in a wave along the road throughout the 70's to where the highway ends into the Stone Mountain Freeway. Village Square was part of that wave, opening in 1975 along the eastern leg of the corridor in the booming Stone Mountain area. As one of many dead retail strips along that road today, this one was highlighted because of its highly distinctive design elements that remain intact today.

The first two images at various levels of detail show the strip with the interior mall/office portion.  Note that the entrance to the mall "courtyard shops" portion and the unknown smaller anchor tenant (shown here as Refugee Family Services) has arches like a Kroger.  These arches used to match the Kroger store itself.  

Detail of the long-vacant Kroger from two angles.  The greenhouse addition was added at an unknown date, but it replaced an older superstore design that was still intact in 1979 per the footage provided.  

The strip to the right of the "courtyard shops" looking west with the junior anchor visible in the background.

Access to the upper level offices is through these stairs, but it doesn't appear that anything is up there any longer.  With plenty of space on the lower level, why would they go to that trouble?  It appears it may be completely closed considering that no elevator was visible to the second story.

Village Square originally opened in 1973 as just a Kmart (coupled with Kmart Foods).  In 1975, it was joined next door with a mixed use center that was a hybrid of a strip mall and open-air mall.  Likely this design was chosen due to terrain and lack of space.  When the addition opened, it featured anchor tenant Kroger with a SupeRX drug store, which was later absorbed into Kroger itself.  The open-air mall in the middle that included among its tenants a Piccadilly Cafeteria and a club named "The Stone Pony" referencing the "Stone Poneys", a band fronted by Linda Rondstadt in the late 1960's and the shopping center's proximity to Stone Mountain.  On the second floor were offices, but the offices were not aligned with the mall area itself, instead running perpendicular facing the parking lot also overlooking part of the "courtyard shops". It appears one other small anchor tenant was in the center, but it is unclear what exactly that was.  My guess would be either Turtle's Record Shop or a five-and-dime type store like McCrory's.

Walking under the offices to reach the "courtyard shops".  The courtyard is a T-shaped center with access to the back parking lot on the left side.

Looking back from two vantage points at the second level office promenade from the courtyard.  It looks like it was blocked off with bars at some point on purpose

Vacant shops/offices to at the corner of the inner courtyard facing northeast.  It appears there were no stores/offices on the east side of the courtyard with the wall of Kroger making up most of that area.

A look back to the front parking lot from the courtyard.

Despite the two year gap between the opening of Kroger and Kmart, Kroger and Kmart were typically partners building shopping centers throughout the 1970's, and this holds true in many shopping centers across the state.  Indeed, the center had a solid 20 year run before things went south.  Kmart was the first to leave departing in 1994, Kroger hung on longer, but left in 1999 relocating just down the road to a former Big Star that originally was built in 1988 at the junction of Memorial Drive and N Hairston Road.  The Village Square store was made even more interesting when compared to the footage in the link above in that the Kroger there was originally a superstore design with the arches clearly removed with the store updated to the famous greenhouse design: a transition that likely occurred around 1984 or 85.  The update suggests that Kroger initially had no plans to relocate from the center for many years, but the planned departure of Kmart apparently spurred the store to eventually relocate to a more competitive location at the intersection of two major roadways.  Village Square is located about a mile west of N Hairston Road, which is a major four lane belt highway on the east side of Atlanta.

At one point it was possible to lounge in the courtyard next to a well-tended planter.  Today you're sitting on rotten benches next to a weed-filled hole.  Also note the "Stone Pony" in the background.

A bit more detail of the courtyard.  It is unclear what the original tenants were except for Stone Pony, which was apparently a bar or club that opened there in the 1970's and was never replaced with anything else.

Detail of the "Stone Pony" inscription which today looks to be stone dead.  A peek inside would have likely uncovered vintage wonders untold.

A view of the entire courtyard including the front entrance and upper level terrace to the right from the back entrance.  It must have been fun back in the day, but today it's a scary place.

The cloudy pictures were a return trip in July (two trips were included in these photos).  Note the very tall weeds that filled the planters in the previous images.  You know when that passes for landscaping the place is basically dead.

The story of Kmart's exodus is a bit more interesting, however.  While Kmart remained until 1994, Kmart had already effectively been replaced when Kmart joined forces with now-defunct Bruno's in 1989 to start a hypermart concept known as American Fare.  Its initial location was a little over three miles away at the intersection of the Stone Mountain Freeway (US 78) and Mountain Industrial Blvd meaning that American Fare likely cannibalized this store badly.  The new store was more than twice the size of a typical Kmart and very popular but turned out to be a flash in the pan as the gigantic store proved to be too large and too far ahead of its time.  The Stone Mountain American Fare store was the first of three total stores that opened under the Kmart/Bruno's experiment.  The other two were located in Charlotte and Jackson, MS.  In addition, the Bruno's partnership faltered due to the sale of the company after a tragic crash that killed much of the upper management including many family members and the CEO.  In 1994, Kmart later rebranded and downgraded American Fare to a Super Kmart replacing the Bruno's-operated supermarket section with Cub Foods.  The change to a regular Kmart resulted in the closing the Kmart at Village Square at the same time.  Later, the American Fare turned Kmart eventually closed the store during the 2002 round of closings.  Today the former American Fare operates as an alternative school for DeKalb County.

The three photos shown here show the American Fare that is located on Mountain Industrial Blvd just south of the Stone Mountain Freeway (US 78).  Mountain Industrial Blvd becomes N Hairston Road connecting to Memorial Drive.  This three-store hypermart concept owned jointly by Kmart and Bruno's opened in 1989, but was later downgraded to a regular Kmart replacing the Kmart at Village Square in 1994.  It converted to Super Kmart in 1995 and closed for good in 2002.  It was sold to the DeKalb County School Board and today is an alternative school.

Kmart was not exactly abandoned when the store at Village Square closed.  While Memorial Drive was in the early stages of decline, it was still far from dead.  The old Kmart found new life and today the main store still operates as "Value Mall" while the Kmart Foods is now a local gym.  While not exactly the draw that Kmart was, the reuse of the former Kmart store keeps the property from becoming derelict.  However, no store has yet to emerge to fill the former Kroger space, which has been vacant for over 15 years.

The original Kmart still stands as "Value Mall".  It is not clear if there were any other tenants in the store between 1989 and present.

Kmart and Kmart Foods.  Action Sports Academy fills the former Kmart Foods.  The former Kroger is a short ways to the right of this photo.

Detail of Kmart Foods.  It is curious how long this operated being less than a block from Kroger.  Was it converted to regular Kmart space before it closed?  Perhaps Bruno's operated the Kmart Foods location at this store thus spearheading the American Fare concept.

While the forces that killed the center were based on its major anchor tenants seeking more competitive venues, the fact remains that the complex today is only partially occupied, and most of those tenants are service-oriented and not retail uses.  Thus, the story is that although competition initially killed Village Square prematurely, it was the continued declining fortunes of what was once a prime retail corridor that have made the shopping center difficult to fill.  The entire center is ripe for redevelopment today, but so far no interested parties have swooped in to occupy the partially vacant center.  Perhaps in the future Kroger will relocate back to the center taking over the old Kmart as yet another location of its "Kroger Marketplace" concept helping to spur a redevelopment of the adjacent center that it left behind many years ago.  For now, Village Square remains as a decrepit monument to 1970's sprawl that has only survived the wrecking ball because nobody cared enough to do anything about it.

Finally Del Taco Came Back

It has been a long wait for so many of us in the South, especially in the Atlanta are. Taco nights featuring real "Del Beef", beans that actually taste like beans and cheap California-style Mexican food that actually is fit to eat had been teasing the taste buds of everyone who remembered them. In fact, it took 20 years for Del Taco to really return since the sale of the East Coast units operated by franchisee WR Grace to Taco Bell in 1992. Many of us have heard the rumors, but those failed to come to fruition. Many of us were also highly disappointed with the low quality of the Del Taco/Mrs. Winners combination units that came and fizzled in the 1995-2003 period. Not only did this damage Del Taco's image in Georgia, but it nearly put Mrs. Winners out of business.

The story of Del Taco was complex since it arrived in a very big way in 1980. While these restaurants were extremely popular, the problems started when the original company stupidly sold the rights to the name in the late 70's, leading to a big mess and a very troubled company in the early 1990's. This is how Del Taco was split into two completely different companies operating the same concept: the western one that is alive and well today and the eastern one owned by WR Grace: the one that ran the Georgia units. The eastern division also had the less common "Taco Villa". Not only did WR Grace sell out those units to what I view is far inferior Taco Bell, but many of those never actually opened as a Taco Bell due to an asbestos issue with all the buildings.

Del Taco Location in former Fazoli's in Snellville, GA. The first photo is of the Kennesaw, GA location prior to opening.

Del Taco drive-thru sign for curiosity at the Snellville, GA location.

Today, the landscape of North Georgia is littered with former Del Taco locations. One in Rome is now a Bojangles. The one in Cartersville is now a Dairy Queen. Krystal took the Acworth and Canton locations. Others have been many independent concepts. I covered the one in Cedartown awhile back that was completely abandoned (and well-preserved). These forgotten locations were not lost on the company, either, as they have made very real strides to come back to the Southeast, and this time they are not riding on the whims of franchisees to do so.

Former Del Taco in Boiling Springs, SC outside of Spartanburg. This photo was taken on June 15, 2010.

Here is a view of the building itself. Note the logo has changed somewhat since this store opened in 2009 (and closed in 2011). Photo taken June 15, 2010.

When Del Taco left the East Coast in 2003, the very last location to leave was a store in St. Simons Island, GA. This location was the only one at that point not to be a co-branded concept, and still sported the WR Grace look. When it closed, the location was replaced with a Chick-Fil-A. In 2009, franchisees John Webber and Rusty Acker were the first to bring Del Taco back, opening a location in Boiling Springs, SC along Hwy 9 outside of Spartanburg. I created a post documenting this hoping to help them promote the location. As the lone wolf in the Taco Bell wilderness, the location did well but the franchisees decided to pull up stakes and closed about a year ago. Situations like this are why Del Taco opted to reopen in Atlanta with company-owned stores. Del Taco is still seeking to return to the Spartanburg Market since that location closed.

Former first generation East Coast Del Taco in Cedartown, GA. This was the only location to remain closed years after it was abandoned in 1992. Photo taken in May 3, 2008.

While the restaurants were far darker, I found the old design more authentic and inviting than the modern concept.

Before the Boiling Springs store opened, Del Taco tried another failed co-branding experiment partnering with Captain D's in Nashville. The locations closed as quickly as they arrived, mostly due to the company seeking to permanently end co-branding concepts after the RTM disaster. Del Taco also opened locations in the Orlando market around this time as well. In addition, a franchisee in Douglasville, GA also announced a future Del Taco location that ultimately never came to fruition.

The Del Taco sign and look sported here was actually not the original look when they arrived in 1980. The original stores were lighter and brighter like they are now. This was a late 1980's redesign. The St. Simons Island, GA location was the last store open to have this look.

Last view of the old, unmodified Del Taco in Cedartown.

Now, after some rocky years financially and many setbacks, Del Taco has finally gotten serious about a return to the Southeast. Their Atlanta return came this February, and it is an ambitious one with 60 planned locations in Atlanta and Athens as well as a return to Macon. So far, Del Taco has opened two locations in the Atlanta market. Their first in Snellville was also, unfortunately, the last remaining Atlanta-area Fazoli's. The Kennesaw location, however, is brand new opening May 9th this year in a recently built-up section along Chastain Road between I-75 and I-575. Oddly, Taco Bell is opening in the former Del Taco/Mrs. Winners combination nearby. Del Taco has also purchased one of the former El Pollo Loco locations on Cobb Parkway in Smyrna and is in the process of converting it. Units in Woodstock and eastern Cobb County are also in the works.

Del Taco taking shape in the former El Pollo Loco location in Smyrna. This was one of my favorite places to eat, but Del Taco definitely tastes better and has more to offer. I once said that I wished that was a Del Taco instead. I guess I'm getting my wish.

If Del Taco meets their 60 store goal is anyone's guess, but the current results are promising. The Snellville location met and exceeded sales goals, and the Kennesaw location draws a regular crowd. Their quality is also excellent, and hopefully will stay that way. I also noted there are plans with a franchisee to expand in the Charlotte market. Franchisee Jeffrey Marx owns the Rock Hill, SC location, and he has plans to expand elsewhere in the Charlotte market eventually. My best guess is that the chance of massive expansion in the Southeast will depend first on how well Del Taco gets re-established in the Atlanta market. Should Taco Bell make a run for the border this time?

NOTE: This is an update of a post written May 29, 2009 about the bumpy road Del Taco has had in the Southeast, and also celebrating their return to Atlanta.

The Death of Shannon Mall: Union City, GA

Shannon Mall was a mall I hoped I would never have to revisit, but I knew I would eventually after my last trip.  I came to recognize that it was one of two malls in the city headed for death within a year, and that is why I took a trip last April to the mall to check up on it to see how it was doing since my overly optimistic post I did in 2009.

Since my 2004 and 2009 photo sets of Shannon Mall, I took one more set of photos on the 2010 trip where I arrived on April 22nd.  I knew it was bad news the minute I saw an "Under New Management" banner outside.  Since when does a WHOLE MALL get that banner?  The mall by then was in a dreadful state with no security, most of the stores gone and an interior beginning to show signs of disrepair.  The mall closed this fall after the owner failed to pay the power bill, and now it is in foreclosure.  On the heels of this, Macy's is now leaving the mall with Sears the only store remaining.  The article posted here claims that "they do not remember another mall closing in Atlanta".  I guess they never noticed when either Cobb Center and Avondale Mall closed down, but as both were 1960's archaic centers it was easy to overlook.

Looking along the wing that was sealed off for several years toward Maxx Fun, which is now closed and opened as Mervyn's, later JCPenney.  In the first pic, it is center court.  Note that despite the condition of the mall the fountain was still fully functioning.

 The lights were still on then, but climate control was non-existant in the doomed mall in the most dead wing.

The old JCPenney wing had the most deterioration as evidenced by the crumbling ceiling tiles from the leaking roof. 

A last (and final) look at the old JCPenney/Mervyn's wing.

Shannon Mall was attacked on every front: Arbor Place took the core of its market in 1999, Ashley Park, a lifestyle center, took the last shoppers from Newnan and Coweta County and Camp Creek Marketplace nabbed the urban clientele as well as much of the inline shops.  Since Macy's opened at Arbor Place in 2004 and Sears opened with the mall in 1999, there was not much of a reason for either store to remain.  I posted in the past a far more optomistic outlook than reality held, and now only Sears remains.  As the smallest mall to open in the 80's in an area that first never really took off then later declined, it did well to last barely over 30 years.

Dead storefronts were abounding in the mall.  Here is a former Zale's Jewelrers.

Finish Line Shoes is out for lunch.  We will be back...never.

The old Davison's/Macy's closed in 1999, and nothing here has changed in that time span.   Note the green stain on the brick where the roof leaked inside the wall.

More dead storefronts.  These were all on the Macy's wing since what few stores remained were mostly around Sears.

Shannon Mall, renamed Union Station, has had its share of abandoned elements for quite awhile.  A movie theater on an outparcel closed and was abandoned for several years before becoming a church.  The original Macy's, located in what opened as Davison's, has been closed for 12 years and is now showing signs of disrepair.  Maxx Fun, a desperate attempt to reopen the dead wing and fill the old JCPenney, failed about a year after opening.  Every chain store was gone from the mall by the time I arrived.  Redevelopment plans also evaporated along with the local economy, which was hit hard by the housing bust.  The mall is also closing just as the mall that effectively replaced it is now struggling, Arbor Place.  Needless to say, the mall's last owner, Union City and surrounding businesses will all be hurt as this mall fades into history.  Hopefully few more in the area will meet this fate anytime soon.  RIP Shannon Southpark Mall.

One last (and full) view of the rather elaborate and cheerful skylights in center court.   This was cutting edge design when the mall opened.

"Union Station" Mall's map was already out of date showing MaxxFun.  Note the configuration of the foodcourt on the southwest wing.

 Walking into the Food Court.  Chick-Fil-A used to be on the right.  They closed just before I arrived.

Bruster's hangs on in the Food Court.  It is a regional ice cream chain found across the Atlanta metro.

What remains in the Food Court are the kind of restaurants that you would normally find haunting old Long John Silvers locations that close as quickly as they open.

Piccadilly, formerly Morrison's, always seems to thrive in dead mall locations.  As you can see, this one was hanging on until the very end.  This is why you will NEVER see them in nice areas again.

 Maxx Fun became Maxx Dissapointment...or should I say Maxx Fail?

 This mall entrance was to the JCPenney/Maxx Fun wing with Maxx Fun on the left.

Davison's here looks especially abandoned and creepy now after 12 years of rotting.  It was the only two-level anchor at the mall, and I would have given anything to go inside.

Mall entrance on Sears wing and Sears to the right.

Sears is sadly reminding me so much of Montgomery Ward.  Here it sits at a mall that is now dead and gone as the last anchor standing like Wards was famous for in the early part of the last decade.  It will doubtfully remain long as Sears itself is struggling to survive for much of the same reasons Montgomery Ward is in the retail graveyard.