On October 1, 2024, Mayor Andre Dickens’ Office of Communication released a press release announcing the “acquisition of the iconic Mall West End thanks to a partnership between Atlanta Urban Development and Atlanta Beltline, Inc.” The project will be led by BRP Companies and The Prusik Group, calling the development “One West End.” The West End Mall closed at the end of January, and development of the mall is set to start in 2025.
The West End Mall opened on June 1, 1972, and, according to Canopy Atlanta, allowed Black Atlantans to shop without having to travel to Buckhead. The West End Mall was a prime location according to Urban Land, due to its proximity to the MARTA and the Atlanta University Center. The West End Mall offered a selection of stores, ranging from apparel to a nail salon, hair salons, a barbershop, shoe stores, a grocery store, an herbal store, and more, according to the West End Merchant Association. The mall hosted many community events, including a holiday program where, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, they hired one of the first Black Santa Clauses.
According to the Mayor’s office, “This acquisition is the first step in the approximate $450 million redevelopment.” The development will include retail stores, a grocery store, a fitness center, approximately 900 mixed-income rental units, 10,00 square feet of affordable commercial space for small, local businesses, student-targeted housing, and a medical office space.
According to Urbanize Atlanta, “The development team has vowed to contribute at least $500,000 to a fund that will help qualifying commercial tenants with rent credits and tenant improvement allowance.” A tenant improvement allowance is a sum of money a landlord offers to their commercial property tenant to cover the cost of renovating their space or building, according to WDI Group. According to LoopNet, renovations may include removing or adding partitions and walls, as well as new flooring, windows, doors, plumbing, electrical systems, and other features.
Concern about redevelopment
Redevelopment in neighborhoods “often leads to gentrification,” according to a Global Location Strategies article. It references historic neighborhoods like, “Old Fourth Ward (home to Ponce City Market), Reynoldstown, and Sweet Auburn (Martin Luther King Jr’s stomping grounds),” who “have seen dramatic rises in property values and rents, forcing many of the poorer and largely minority populations out of the only communities they have ever known” after redevelopment hit their neightborhoods.
On average, gentrification results in a $540 increase in property taxes, according to ScienceDirect, forcing many low-income families and those who’ve been in the community for generations, known as legacy residents, to relocate due to unaffordability. Oftentimes, this changes the cultural landscape of the community, according to Fox 5, which references the 523 majority-Black neighborhoods between 1980 and 2020 that experienced gentrification, “Of those, 155 went through full racial turnover — changing from majority-Black to majority-white. Another 121 became more racially diverse.”
Amirah Jabbie, 16, a teen living in the West End, is concerned about the promise of affordable housing in the development, noting that “a lot of the time the phrase ‘Affordable Housing’ is branded as workforce level affordability and isn’t genuinely accessible for normal residents.” Canopy Atlanta says, “the affordable housing we already have isn’t cutting it for a lot of folks.”
More than two-thirds of low-income renters, who are usually in affordable housing, pay over 30% of their income, according to the Rental Housing Affordability in the Southeast report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta — making Atlanta’s affordable housing unaffordable. Additionally, according to 11Alive, Atlanta has lost “more than 200,000 affordable housing units in the last 5 years.”
According to Capital B, Angela Clyde, chair of Atlanta’s Neighborhood Planning Unit, reports that community members want to keep the community affordable and accessible, especially since many “residents come from low-income backgrounds and rely on the mall for entertainment for their children, job security, and access to affordable shopping.”
West End Mall had two prior redevelopment attempts
The first attempt at redevelopment was in the 1980s, introduced by Mayor Andrew Young. Mayor Young proposed a $100 million project turning the West End Mall into the West End Plaza, equipped with “ 840 condominiums, a Chinese restaurant, and a department store stocked with imported products,” according to Canopy Atlanta.
Ultimately, the project did not become a reality due to community resistance; residents did not think the plan had “adequate employment opportunities or housing plans that served the community’s needs.” Community leaders took it a step further and lobbied for a new “ zoning ordinance that required a neighborhood vote for any new buildings that varied from design rules.”
In 2019, the 2nd attempt at repurposing the West End came to the community, not from a politician but from a private business. According to Ubrand land, “In 2019, a $400 million redevelopment plan” was proposed by Elevator City Partners. Elevator City Partners is an Atlanta-based real estate development firm, according to WhatNow.com. However, according to Capital B, the Elevator City Partners’ plan failed due to insufficient funding. Quickly, a New York-based developer agreed to buy the mall and “make way for new boutiques and mixed-use projects that would attract a diverse workforce from the AUC.” Again, after a few months, the plan by the New York-based developer failed.
Community Input
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the developers behind “One West End” have already considered and heard community concerns.
The developers met with “mall business owners, the business owners outside of the mall, and the community stakeholders” at the request of the Neighborhood Planning Unit. At the meetings, they heard the community’s concerns and explained their visions for the space. According to Canopy Atlanta, “the developers have hosted a spring block party and launched online community listening sessions,” with some focused on transportation and accessibility, a concern many residents are interested in.
Jabbie is optimistic about the redevelopment, envisioning the West End “to thrive after the redevelopment.” She thinks “The community will definitely prosper after being through major economic struggles such as poor management or declining revenue sales.”
