Greenbriar Mall

Greenbriar Mall

Location	Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Opening date	1965
Management	O’Leary Partners, Inc.
No. of stores and services	100+
No. of anchor tenants	3
Total retail floor area	678,072 sq ft (62,995.0 m2)
No. of floors	1
Website	Greenbriar Mall

Greenbriar Mall is a shopping mall in the Greenbriar neighborhood of southwest Atlanta.

Early years

Greenbriar Center opened in August/September 1965 as Atlanta's third totally enclosed mall, after Columbia Mall, in 1964, and North Dekalb Center, in July 1965. The design of the mall was like many of the early malls in Atlanta with an anchor store on each end and an enclosed hallway. The complex opened with Rich's on the east end and JCPenney on the west. It was the second-largest suburban Rich's when it first opened.

It was the very first shopping mall location of a Chick-fil-A. Local Atlanta businessman S. Truett Cathy took the chicken sandwiches served at his Dwarf House in nearby Hapeville and opened the Greenbriar store in 1967.

The mall had a movie theatre, and Record Bar opened one of its stores there, to be later supplanted by Camelot Music. There was also a Happy Herman's Liquor Store, a Woolworth's dimestore and a branch of the Atlanta Public Library.

A large fountain was in front of the JC Penney entrance. A floor-to-ceiling wrought-iron birdcage was near the center of the mall, filled with many small birds. A Piccadilly Cafeteria was an eating spot there.

Decline

The area around Greenbriar Mall had been in transition since the late 1960s. Middle-class white residents were aging, and their children were not staying in the area. Many of the homes in nearby East Point were converted into rental properties; and nearby Campbellton Road and Camp Creek Parkway were gaining more black residents, as well as many apartment complexes. In the mid-1980s, after the loss of Happy Herman's, Hallmark, toy store, and the theater, Greenbriar Mall attempted to revitalize itself by enlarging the hallway where Happy Herman's, the toy store, and Chick-fil-A stood into a small food court. Chick-fil-A had a much more prominent position in this new food court. It was too little, too late and most of the major retailers pulled out during the 1980s. The arcade closed shortly thereafter. J.C. Penney struggled for years to hold on and finally closed; the site became an Uptons in 1987 and later became a Burlington Coat Factory, while Rich's closed its tea room. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Peppermint Records became the new music retailer, which later closed in 2005, and Magic Johnson built a new movie theater adjoining the mall, operating from 1996 until October 11, 2009. Rich's name also changed to Macy's in 2005.

Present day

Greenbriar Mall is in the Greenbriar neighborhood, a mostly black area of the city. The center has national retailers as well as local establishments. The notability of the mall is for multiple reasons not just for its history but its future as an economic powerhouse on the Southwest side of Atlanta.^{[citation needed]}

In 2008, Tyler Perry opened Tyler Perry Studios on a 30-acre (120,000 m²) site 0.5 miles (0.80 km) away from the mall on Greenbriar Parkway. In addition, several recording studios call the area home: including Stack Em Entertainment, Hood South Studios, and Dirty Music. Figure 8 nightclub is also in the vicinity. The 2008 Music Expo, a showcase for child musical talent, was featured at the Greenbriar Mall. This has all added to a renaissance for Greenbriar Mall.

Anchors

• Macy's (180,000 sq ft)

Former anchors

• Rich's (opened 1965, became Macy's in 2005)
• JCPenney (opened in 1965, Burlington Coat Factory today)

Junior Anchors

• Burlington Coat Factory

Former Junior anchors

• Magic Johnson Theatres

External links

• Sky City: Greenbriar Mall