Stonecrest mall energizes southeast DeKalb

Stonecrest mall energizes southeast DeKalb

Photo:Gerald Singletary
This aerial view of the Stonecrest area is from October. Expansions will include a Wal-Mart, a Holiday Inn and auto dealerships.

By DONNA WILLIAMS LEWIS

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Construction crews still dot the landscape around the Mall at Stonecrest, seven years after the mall that it seemed would never be built finally opened in southeast DeKalb County.

“It has exceeded all of our expectations,” said Maria Mullins, director of DeKalb’s Office of Economic Development.
The mall was a long time coming. For 18 years, land off I-20 at Turner Hill Road in Lithonia sat cleared as a series of developers approached and retreated from the project. Ground finally was broken for Stonecrest in October 1999 by Toronto-based commercial real estate investor Cadillac Fairview and its partner on the mall, Cleveland-based real estate developer Forest City Enterprises.

Stonecrest transformed the once-sleepy, rural area. Now the 1,100 acres that comprise the mall and adjacent property owned by Cadillac Fairview include five hotels, nearly 20 restaurants, several office buildings, dozens of businesses and hundreds of homes.

Moving beyond the mall, thousands of homes — from apartments to single family houses priced from $200,000 to $500,000 — have been built, are under construction or planned in subdivisions within a one-mile radius.

Here’s an update on the mall:

What’s new

• In the mall: Kohl’s has joined Dillard’s, Macy’s, J.C. Penney and Sears as an anchor.

• New office space: A 55,000-square-foot building with Strayer University as anchor tenant and a 30,000- square-foot medical building anchored by DeKalb Medical have opened. Kaiser Permanente has opened in an 18,000-square-foot building, with plans to expand to 32,000 square feet.

• Residential: Ryland Homes has finished about 300 homes and 20 townhomes among 1,028 homes planned for The Parks at Stonecrest.

• Restaurants: An IHOP restaurant opened last summer with an upscale, stacked stone exterior.

• Car dealership: A Malcolm Cunningham Mazda car dealership opened last week on Mall Parkway.

In the works

• A 120-room Holiday Inn Hotel, with a 10,000-square-foot conference center. Expected opening: spring 2009.

• Ashley Furniture store, 55,000 square feet under construction. Expected opening: first quarter 2009.

• More auto dealerships. Carmax has purchased nine acres next to Target. Conyers Toyota is relocationg on 12 acres on Mall Parkway. Expected opening: spring 2009.

• Wal-Mart has 25 acres under contract at Mall Parkway and Klondike Road. Expected opening: Not yet determined.

What’s missing

• Entertainment area: An entertainment village originally was planned to be built on 30 acres adjacent to the mall’s movie theater plaza. The area is being reinvented as a mixed-use “hospitality/retail/residential area.” Two acres have just been sold there for Stonecrest’s sixth hotel, a Marriott.

• Grocery store: The proposed Wal-Mart is expected to have a grocery division. Cadillac Fairview also is considering holding open-air markets that would sell produce and other wares on the property.

Growth around Stonecrest

• Flat Rock Elementary School opened in August 2007 on Evans Mill Road near Browns Mill Road. A new environmentally themed high school, Arabia Mountain High School, is under construction off Browns Mill Road, and is expected to open next summer.

• Ground was broken Nov. 21 for a 25,000-square-foot public library branch at the intersection of Klondike Road and Hayden Quarry Road. Construction is scheduled to begin in December. Projected opening: January 2010.

• The state Department of Transportation has launched an $8.9 million project to widen and reconstruct 1.2 miles on Lithonia Industrial Boulevard, from Rogers Lake Road to Rock Chapel Road. A bridge will be built over the Swift Creek tributary.