Opened in 2014, Avalon in Alpharetta, Georgia, is often cited as a model of successful mixed-use retail projects.
Photos courtesy of Jamestown L.P.
Speakers at Redevelopment Summit urge greater community ties.
Mixed-use retail will succeed in the current marketplace to the extent that the development ties in with the community around it and connects to parks, amenities, neighborhoods and other desirable features of the town.
That was the over-arching takeaway from the 2024 Metro Atlanta Redevelopment Summit held Nov. 6 at Maison 4065 in Duluth, Georgia, a Gwinnett County suburb of Atlanta.
Kathi Cook, community development director for the City of Alpharetta, another northern Atlanta suburb, offered this axiom during a panel discussion on “Innovation in Redevelopment.”
Her advice to the 200 attendees boiled down to this: Don’t have a lot of stand-alone mixed-use developments (MUDs). Rather, be intentional about creating connections to parks and other amenities. “It must be a good place to live,” she said. Otherwise, the retail shops and other components of the MUD will not thrive long-term. “Also,” she added, “make sure that all of your codes are up to date.”
Creating those connections was central to this week’s awarding by the Atlanta Regional Commission of around $169 million in federal funding for transportation projects across metro Atlanta through the agency’s Transportation Improvement Program (TIP). Mixed-use nodes were prominent in the list of 59 projects, including further development of Atlanta’s popular Beltline, a greenway trail in the City of Brookhaven and new multi-use trails in Site Selection’s own Gwinnett County hometown of Peachtree Corners, part of the city’s vision for its innovation district.
According to the Atlanta Regional Commission, there are 127 Livable Centers Initiative communities around the metro area of 6.2 million people. Around 67,420 of those people live in Alpharetta, a city that straddles Georgia 400 in North Fulton County. Alpharetta’s most popular shopping destination is Avalon, an 86-acre mixed-use community that has more than 570,000 sq. ft. of retail space plus entertainment, conference center, hotel, office and residential space.
Developed by North American Properties, Avalon has been open for 10 years and is home to such retailers as Whole Foods, Regal Cinemas, Crate & Barrel, Vineyard Vines and Williams-Sonoma. Popular restaurants at Avalon include the Oak Steakhouse and South City Kitchen, which is located on the first level of the upscale Hotel at Avalon.
Cook said the key to ensuring long-term success at MUDs is to make sure that all components work together for shared gain. “For example, we are seeing 20% vacancy rates in a lot of our suburban office parks,” said Cook. “We work with developers to ensure that impact fees are spent on improvements at their development.”
Recent studies of mixed-use development include CBRE’s “Shaping Tomorrow’s Cities” report, released last May, which found that “offices and other properties in cities’ vibrant mixed-use districts have fared significantly better than those in office-dominant districts.” A May 2024 “thought paper” from Hines considered the idea of “Mixed Use 3.0” through the lens of developments from Toronto to North Carolina to Los Angeles, proposing that the concept creates “that ‘third space’ people need now more than ever — a social, experiential setting where people choose to gather, again and again, with each other.” Meanwhile, Gwinnett County’s own 2045 Unified Plan provides detailed land use context about the current and potential role of mixed use in the county where the Metro Atlanta Redevelopment Summit took place.
At the November Summit, Tim Perry, managing director and chief investment officer for Jamestown, said, “Retail is the best amenity you can have for office space in a mixed-use development. But the biggest challenge for retail going forward will be high costs. Restaurants that used to make $2 million to $2.5 million annually now must do $4 million to $4.5 million per year to make it. A lot of effort goes into increasing the dwell time at these developments, and that is important for all the retailers.”
“Retail is the best amenity you can have for office space in a mixed-use development.”
— Tim Perry, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer, Jamestown
Perry should know. His firm, Jamestown, developed Ponce City Market in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood of Atlanta. At 3 million total sq. ft., PCM is one of the largest MUDs in metro Atlanta. Located at 675 Ponce de Leon Avenue, PCM has 638,000 sq. ft. of Class A office space, 821 residential units and 327,000 sq. ft. of retail and restaurants.
Chris McGahee, economic development and marketing director for the City of Duluth, told attendees that they needed to “be as nimble as Avalon.”
The bottom line of the panel discussion: Know your fundamentals, control your costs and always be ready to adapt to changing market conditions. Retail developers that fail to master all of these strategies will learn the hard way that simply locating in a MUD is not enough to guarantee repeatable success.
At 3 million sq. ft., Ponce City Market is one of the largest MUDs in metro Atlanta.
