Inside Out
Atlanta's Cumberland Mall undergoes a much-needed redevelopment, including a new lifestyle addition.

One of Atlanta's first two-level enclosed malls is getting a total body makeover.

Originally designed and built in the early 1970s, Cumberland Mall received a facelift and food court addition in 1989, but has since experienced the aging effects of the past 15 years. Now, thanks to a growing population, increasing income and new competition in the area, mall owner General Growth Properties has planned a complete re-imaging of the center and a better linkage to the Galleria and conference center, subsequently built across the street, serving many visitors who reside outside the Atlanta area.

The re-imaging plan is two-fold: to elevate the mall's interior to attract the more sophisticated merchant and its target shopper, and to provide space for a new open-air lifestyle expansion, focusing on a new entrance to the center court.

General Growth hired TVS Architecture, who had done some work on Cumberland for previous owners, to design an aggressive interior renovation program. TVS started by analyzing residential and commercial changes in the growing neighborhoods around Cumberland.

“We found that the demographics in that area were incredible,” says Donna Childs, senior associate with TVS Architecture. “It was really off the charts in terms of income and age, with a lot of very young, career-oriented people, some of who were just starting families. It was no wonder they didn't shop here, because this mall doesn't really have the kind of atmosphere that these kinds of people would appreciate, nor does it have the tenants.”

The mall, which has a prime Atlanta address at the intersection of Interstates 85 and 285, seemed to be experiencing leakage of these prime shoppers primarily to nearby Perimeter Mall; the Vinings area, just one exit away; and all the way to Lenox Square Mall in Buckhead. A change was needed to keep these shoppers in the neighborhood, and TVS's program called for a complete floor-to-ceiling transformation.

Gone will be the geometrical architecture and jagged angles from the original design, and in its place will be softer, more refined finishes; larger floor openings between the second and lower levels; and more focused natural light. For example, the lobby mood will change with the design of curved geometries and plenty of soft seating, and all floor openings will be enhanced with glass railings for greater visibility from both levels.

One advantage Cumberland has over a lot of regional malls is a healthy lunchtime crowd, fueled by the many office buildings surrounding the mall.

“Cumberland's food court has always done well at lunch, but a lot of those people use the food court and then move on,” notes Hank Spiker, an architect with TVS. “So this renovation is also oriented toward capturing those folks and trying to get them to stay longer or to come back after work — and also give them different and better opportunities for lunch.”

TVS plans to add more than 250 seats to the existing food court, creating different environments within those seating zones that will evoke more one-on-one conversations and will be geared more toward business people. As part of the food court renovation, TVS is creating an upscale restroom complex that caters to the shopper, particularly the female shopper, with a lounge, soft seating and amenities, such as a baby changing and nursing area.

Another issue faced by General Growth was a construction project to widen the mall's entrance road, U.S. 41, which resulted in the loss of trees and grass and anything remotely pastoral.

“The front door to the mall suddenly became sort of stark, and that started to bring up the discussion of how to recreate an image for the mall,” says Spiker.

At the same time, notes Spiker, General Growth was making a commitment to re-study the mall's tenant mix and to see what it could do to provide tenants who would appeal more to the local residents. That sparked the concept of not only the mall renovation, but a lifestyle-type expansion. What has come from the study is an open-air extension that will replace the then existing Macy's store (which is in the process of being demolished) and will have arms that open up to the parking area and invite people into the project at Center Court — in short, a new entrance to the mall.

General Growth negotiated the purchase of the Macy's parcel, owned by Federated, with the lifestyle section in mind.

“We purchased that to gain control and do what we wanted to do with the project,” says Jenny L. Forst, vice president of marketing for General Growth. “The lifestyle section was contingent on controlling that real estate.”

General Growth is also looking at reconfiguring the former JC Penney, which is now closed and will eventually be replaced by a major tenant other than a department store, as well as several smaller tenants.

Luckily, TVS had experience in the area of adding a lifestyle component to a regional mall — the architectural firm was an instrumental player in starting that concept at the Mall of Georgia for Simon Property Group in the late 1990s.

“That was sort of the first experimentation with open-air components relative to enclosed, and there are many developers doing that now,” Spiker notes. “I think it's somewhat of a trend because it takes what was an inward-oriented building, usually with no exterior entrance at all other than maybe a department store and a couple of mall entrances, and turning it into an outward building that causes people to see the project better and relate to it better.”

In the open-air component, General Growth's plans call for mostly higher-end restaurants and lifestyle retail, including apparel and home furnishings tenants.

“We want to expand our customer base,” notes Forst. “We really want to target a lot of the customers who live in the immediate area, which is a higher income area, as well as the office worker. To play off both those markets, we're in negotiations with some great signature restaurants that drive an office worker and convention center visitor. There's a real demand in the market for a sit-down, white tablecloth restaurant. So we have a real opportunity to fill that niche.”

For many years, Cumberland competed with the Galleria mall, directly across the street, for retail tenants. But Galleria now seems to be more focused on the conference business, with Cumberland more on the retail business. And the pedestrian route that was installed between the two centers several years ago has been a good link between the two.

“The pedestrian walking experience, once you got to the Cumberland side of the bridge, however, has been a little bit questionable aesthetically,” says Spiker. “It's just not a very pleasant walking experience — you're cutting across a parking lot that's not very well landscaped.”

The new TVS design will maintain the same pedestrian bridges between the two malls but will improve the pedestrian experience and focus it more toward the lifestyle center so people will tend to come into the mall in front of the restaurants, which will also benefit the Galleria.

The schedule for the Cumberland renovation is on the fast track, with the mall construction underway. The project will proceed in phases with all of the interior work and the food court exterior entrance completed at the end of this year, before the holidays. The lifestyle portion and the center court will be the next phase, which will continue after the holidays with completion scheduled for the middle of next year. The projected overall completion date is summer/fall of next year.

— Susan H. Fishman