After years of discussions, alterations and ownership changes, the site of Lakeshore Mall in Gainesville finally has a clear direction.
The Gainesville City Council voted Tuesday to approve rezoning allowing for Atlanta-based Branch Properties to re-imagine the mall as a mixed-use development. Gainesville City Manager Bryan Lackey said Thursday that the project has been a long time coming.
"It's been quite the process," Lackey said. "Branch Properties bought it from another ownership group that really had no vision, just wanted to keep operating (the mall) as it was. They had, we think, some plans to chop it up and make some out parcels, which was not what we wanted."
Lackey said the city and Branch Properties had similar visions for what the site could be, which he says will be an "outdoor mall" concept along the lines of Alpharetta's Avalon and Halycon developments.
"The days of the indoor mall, I think, are gone, or at least in sharp decline," Lackey said. "We're really excited about what (Branch Properties) is bringing to the table."
The plan calls for most of the mall, except for the Belk store, to be demolished. In it's place would be around 200,000 square feet of new retail space, roughly 75,000 square feet of restaurant space and hundreds of townhome and apartment units.
Lackey said Dick's Sporting Goods plans to maintain a presence on the site, but is looking to tear down its existing store and build a new facility that will be part of the project.
Lakeshore Mall has been in Gainesville since the early 1970s. Over the years, expansions grew the building to nearly 500,000 square feet, but store closures and attempted re-developments have left several parts of the structure vacant, with others being outright demolished or separated from the overall mall itself.
Lackey said early renderings of the proposed redevelopment by Branch Properties show a very different scene.
"(Barbara) Brooks, one of our council members, used the phrase 'visually intoxicating' for the site plan," Lackey said.
The current plan approved by the city council Tuesday will see demolition of the existing mall starting in late 2026. That demolition is expected to take around 18 months to complete.
"The first phase will be the de-malling of the Belk's and building Dick's a brand new store, because both stores have to stay open through the entire process," Lackey said. "They have all the leases and all the upper-hand when it comes to what happens. In this case, they've been able to work with Branch Properties on a new plan."
Lackey said new construction on the site should start taking place in late 2027 into early 2028, with stores expected to start opening in late 2028 into early 2029.
Lackey said the redevelopment of Lakeshore Mall could be a keystone project for the west side of Gainesville.
"Downtown has been really booming and thriving. Of course, Dawsonville Highway, they seem like they can't shoe in any more retail in certain places. There is a point where you want all that to stop going out. You don't want to keep going further and further and have the sprawl. You want it to come back into town," Lackey said. "That's what this does. It's going to have that new factor where people are going to want to be there, other retailers are going to want to be there. We'll have what I think is going to be a great continuous corridor from the downtown area."
