New Mall Opens Wednesday In Affluent South Forsyth

By RACHEL TOBIN RAMOS , NANCY BADERTSCHER www.ajc.com

When The Avenue Forsyth opens its doors Wednesday, it will be the first of three planned retail centers targeting wealthy bedroom communities and affluent offices on the northern reaches of Ga. 400.
Where some may see traffic, retail developers are seeing a "gold-lined brick road" to one of the wealthiest demographics in the country.

The Avenue Forsyth shopping center (shown getting some work last week) will debut Wednesday in Cumming. By mid-May, about 50 stores and five restaurants will be open at the mall, at Exit 13 off Ga. 400. It will be anchored by Barnes & Noble, DSW and AMC Theatres.

Mike Ashworth cleans the ornate ceiling at The Chocolaterie at The Avenue Forsyth. There are also two luxury malls in the works for Exits 10 and 12 off Ga. 400.

They cite office workers and McMansion dwellers that need more options for lunchtime meetings, afternoon shopping and weekend "retail-tainment" in north Fulton and south Forsyth counties.

The Avenue Forsyth, developed by Atlanta-based Cousins Properties, will open at Exit 13 off Ga. 400 with about 50 stores, anchored by Barnes & Noble, DSW and an AMC Theatre.

Meanwhile, two luxury malls are in the works: developer Stan Thomas' Prospect Park at Exit 10 in Alpharetta, and Taubman Centers Inc.'s proposed mall in Cumming at Exit 12.
The new retail centers will compete with malls that already snake up Ga. 400, starting with Lenox Square Mall and Phipps Plaza in Buckhead at Exit 2 and ending with North Point Mall in Alpharetta at Exit 9.

To be sure, two of the malls aren't yet out of the ground. But despite the flagging economy, retail developers' interest in this tony region of metro Atlanta hasn't waned.
"There's such captive demand," said Joel Murphy, president of Cousins' retail division. The excitement for the center, he said, "is palpable. You can feel it."

Marketing materials for Prospect Park cite Alpharetta's median home price of $300,000, 30 new developments where home prices start at $1 million and 140,000 workers within a 10-minute drive of the project in north Fulton.

And Forsyth County was dubbed the 13th richest county in America by Forbes.com, which cited the area's median income of $83,682. Per capita income in the county grew by 84 percent between 1990 and 2000, according to Tim Perry, a local banker and member of the Forsyth County Development Authority.

"Certainly, the demographics of the county are conducive to an upscale center," Perry said.
"People with money have money," said Randy Stuart, an assistant professor of marketing and retailing at the Michael J. Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University. "If somebody can go to Saks to shop today, I really don't think it [a recession] will matter to them."
Ward Kampf manages leasing for Prospect Park, the 540,000-square-foot retail center planned for the northwest quadrant of Ga. 400 and Old Milton Parkway.

A Whole Foods and 16-screen AMC Theatre complex could open there in 2009. The project is about 60 percent leased, with letters of intent for another 20 to 25 percent, he said.
"What we've seen is that the demographics of Alpharetta just jump off the charts," said Kampf.
"Retail up and down the 400 corridor has been underserved, from the standpoint of casual luxury to luxury retailers," he said.

The proposed Taubman mall in Cumming is less defined, as the developer hasn't announced any retailers. Taubman has proposed a $1 billion luxury mall, hotel, class A office and residential units to open in fall 2011. The company still needs zoning changes to the 164-acre lot.
The Forsyth mall would be Taubman's first in metro Atlanta. Taubman specializes in luxury retail, like Beverly Center in Los Angeles, anchored by Bloomingdale's.

As for The Avenue Forsyth, it's targeting a lower price point, with Chico's and Coldwater Creek, and restaurants from Jim & Nick's BBQ to Chick-fil-A. There's also the higher price point Ann Taylor for women and Jos. A Bank for men. It will also have a 12-screen AMC Theatre.
"We want to appeal to a lot of the households there. Not just one of every 10, but eight or 10 of every 10," said Murphy. "We've proved this time again, as have other developers, what attracts people isn't the size of the stores but the quality of the retailers."

The Avenue is an open-air retail concept that Cousins developed in 1998. The Avenue Forsyth will be the fifth such center in Atlanta, and ninth nationwide.
By the official ribbon cutting on May 14, about 50 stores and five restaurants will be open at The Avenue Forsyth.
Some stores will open Wednesday.

The last time Forsyth County was giddy over a new local shopping center was 1991, when crowds welcomed a Belk department store in Cumming.
"That was a milestone for us," said Linda Ledbetter, a lifelong resident of Forsyth County and member of the county commission. "This is another," she said of The Avenue Forsyth, "and it's been 20 years in coming."

Ledbetter said: "Not to have to leave Forsyth County to have a nice shopping mall is just really awesome. I never really thought I'd see it in my lifetime."
North Fulton and south Forsyth County are "a gold-lined brick road because of the executive housing," said Frank Norton Jr., a Gainesville real estate broker and analyst.
And the economic downturn isn't an issue for companies like Taubman. "They look for returns (in) five, seven and 10 years," he said.

Still, there's disagreement over the impact the malls will have on Phipps and Lenox malls in Buckhead.
Michael Puline, vice president of leasing for DLC Management, a national mall owner with 16 in metro Atlanta, thinks "the pie is only so big."
Puline isn't confident all the proposed malls will be built. And if they are, Lenox and Phipps will suffer for it, he said.

But Ray Uttenhove, managing principal for brokerage Staubach Retail's southeast region, doesn't think Phipps and Lenox will take a hit.
"There's a flourishing customer in that area that doesn't want to trek to Buckhead," she said. "There's room to have luxury in north Fulton and south Forsyth."
Tisha Maley, head of retail leasing at Phipps and Lenox, isn't worried about losing business.
Stores like Gucci, Tory Burch, Jimmy Choo, and Barney's Co-op are the only outposts in the Southeast, and draw from "beyond the Atlanta market," she said.
For his part, Norton thinks North Point Mall will have the most to lose if all the malls go up.
"It's their market to lose," he said. "They've got to remerchandise and maintain their image of quality."

For Ledbetter, the Forsyth native, her priorities are clear: "I have traffic. Now I want amenities, and we're getting them."