The plan for revitalizing the Gwinnett Place Mall property with a mixture of retail, restaurants, green space, a cultural center and residential uses is moving forward.
Gwinnett County commissioners voted on Tuesday night to approve the Gwinnett Place Mall Revitalization Strategy that the Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District worked on last year. The strategy calls for tearing down most of the existing Gwinnett Place Mall property — except for the Macy’s, Mega Mart and Beauty Master anchors — and replacing it with a mixed-use “Global Villages” redevelopment concept.
“This is history in the making, and I’m honored to have a front row seat,” Commissioner Kirkland Carden, whose district includes the mall area, said in a statement. “As the commissioner who represents the mall area, I wanted to make sure it is an economic force for Gwinnett County. Our vote tonight will make that happen.”
Gwinnett Place Mall is Gwinnett County’s oldest mall, having opened in 1984, but it had been in a steep decline for at least a decade before the county closed on a $23 million purchase of most of the property in 2021, and it was being used as a filming site for movies in addition to retail purposes in its final years.
The county bought the interior retail spaces in the mall, including the old food court and the former Belk anchor.
The former Sears anchor was bought in 2018 by apartment developer Northwood Ravin, but that space was used as a mass COVID-19 testing and vaccination site during the recent pandemic.
The county adopted an equitable redevelopment plan for the property last year and county and Gwinnett Place CID officials have said that plan and the revitalization strategy share a lot of similar ideas for how the property should be used.
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