Gwinnett Place redeveloptment takes big step

Global real estate firm CBRE picked as county partner to revitalize 39-acre mall site.

Gwinnett County is partnering with the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm to tackle one of its most challenging pieces of property: Gwinnett Place Mall.

Gwinnett leadership announced Tuesday that it brought on CBRE to help deliver the county’s promise to transform the area into a thriving community center — something the mall hasn’t provided in decades.

When it was built in 1984, Gwinnett Place Mall led to an economic boom in the area surrounding Duluth, serving as the county’s unofficial downtown. But that changed with the start of the mall’s decline about 15 years later. In recent years, the mall located along Pleasant Hill Road has been more famous as a film location — serving as the high-profile backdrop in Netflix’s “Stranger Things” — than as a retail hub.

The mall’s appraised value peaked in 1999 at $167 million, and its worth plummeted in the following decades. In 2021, Gwinnett County paid $23 million to purchase 39 acres of the near-empty mall, sparking a renewed effort to breathe new life into the struggling retail property.

Last year, the county adopted a 20-year plan that involves tearing down most of the mall and replacing it with seven residential villages with up to 3,800 units in addition to offices, restaurants, shops, green space and a cultural center. A greenway trail also is planned to encircle the property and connect the site to Gwinnett’s network of trails and a new bus transit center.

“This is a significant and exciting new development in the story of the mall’s revitalization,” Gwinnett Chairwoman Nicole Love Hendrickson said in a news release. “CBRE is the right partner to help bring a transformative redevelopment project to the Gwinnett Place Mall site.”

Gwinnett, the state’s second-most populous county after Fulton, is one of metro Atlanta’s fastest-growing counties. It’s already on the cusp of 1 million residents, and it is expected to have 1.2 million by 2050, says the Atlanta Regional Commission. County leaders have stressed they need denser development and more transit options in preparation for that continued residential growth, with Gwinnett Place Mall’s redevelopment highlighted as a central project to reach those goals.

Jae Kim, a CBRE vice president who heads its Korea desk, has lived in Gwinnett for more than 35 years and said in the release that the company will build on Gwinnett County’s work to date and “deliver a revitalized, vibrant, and inclusive development for Gwinnett residents.”

The project’s next steps include refining the redevelopment plan before seeking development partners. An updated timeline for the project was not provided.

COURTESY Gwinnett Place Mall (top) once was a vital part of that area of the county. The hope is that a redeveloped mall can become vital as well. The plan is tobuild residences, offices, restaurants, shops and a cultural center, as well as adding green space.

COURTESY The county plans a “transformative redevelopment project” at the site.