Thursday, April 12, 2012

Price and Advice Coming to Buckhead , hhgregg Opening Soon

Hhgregg will soon penetrate ITP in Atlanta.  Indianapolis, Indiana-based hhgregg will open a new location in the former Circuit City in Buckhead Triangle.  The store has been vacant since Circuit City shuttered the location, and their entire company, in 2009.  I'm told Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Best Buy was also interested in the space and there may have been a bidding war of sorts to lease the space.

Best Buy would have made little sense considering they announced they would close 50 of their big-box stores.  Best Buy is opening hundreds of smaller Best Buy Mobile stores, and perhaps this site could have tested a larger format mobile store.  Instead, though, hhgregg will open in the former Circuit City in addition to a portion of the current FedEx Office. FedEx is in the midst of a twelve week downsizing and renovation program to make room for its new neighbor.  

Hhgregg entered the Atlanta market in the early 2000s and has locations in Buford, near the Mall of Georgia, in Duluth near Gwinnett Place Mall, in Smyrna near Cumberland Mall, and six other locations in cities even further OTP like Fayetteville and Douglasville.  

hhgregg, unlike Best Buy, does not sell CDs and DVDs and other media items, and instead sells theater packages and appliances, along with vacuums and mattresses.  South Florida-based BrandsMart USA, with four metro location,s and San Jose-based Fry's Electronics, with two metro locations, are closer competitors to hhgregg on some items though both are relegated to mostly suburban locations.  hhgregg will likely do well when it comes to large appliances with little area competition.  Mattresses on the other hand, can be purchased at countless Mattress specialty stores in Atlanta, and in Buckhead especially where there are Mattress Firms in what seems like every other shopping center.  

Buckhead Triangle, once the home of Just For Feet, Circuit City, Kinko's and Borders, welcomed Pinkberry in place of Marble Slab Creamery ( in the former Just for Feet), FedEx Office in place of Kinko's, and will soon welcome a relocated The Container Store in the former bi-level Borders space.  Sources also told me that hhgregg's decision to open in the center hinged largely on the co-tenancy of The Container Store.  

What are your thoughts of hhgregg?  Do you think hhgregg will find success in Buckhead?  Where do you buy your large appliances?  

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15 comments:

Skreet said...

I wonder when the Container Store will be making the big move? I had completely forgotten about that...

Anonymous said...

I really miss the Borders. I went there almost every week. Now I never go there and I doubt I'll have much reason to go in the future. Borders is a huge loss to the whole neighborhood.

Atlantan99 said...

@Skreet,

Interior work on the Borders space is well underway but far from finished. I'd expect to see The Container Store make the move sometime later this year, early fall perhaps.

Thanks for reading and for the comment.

Anonymous said...

How is HH Gregg still around? Their store layouts and customer service are far worse than Circuit City's ever were.... mind-boggling.

Skreet said...

I can hardly contain myself :)

TheJohnP said...

That section of the center HHG is going to be in is almost completely invisible from Peachtree, one of the problems that Circuit City had when it was in that same space. I don't think they will do well there and will have to be subsidized by their other stores in the market.

HHG should have taken the space Container Store was vacating.

Anonymous said...

Great Read - I was wondering who was taking the other half of that box.

Anonymous said...

They clock is running on HH Gregg too....this is a band aid on a retail wound

Sammy said...

What's the story with the HiFi Buys near the Peachtree/Roswell Road split in Buckhead? Is it open? Is that company even still around? It's a highly visible location but has always been horrible to navigate. I can't imagine anything would do well there.

Anonymous said...

What is going on in the old Hi-Fi Buys Buckhead location?

Anonymous said...

What is going on in the old Hi-Fi Buys Buckhead location?

It has recently been boarded up.

Anonymous said...

Container Store opening for the new space is scheduled for Mid September (it was moved back from an initial May re-opening).

As for the old Container Store space, rumors are that a large national liquor store is likely for that spot ... which is not ideal in anyway for that high profile space.

Unfortunately, Selig just continues to mint money and puts very little back into beautification of it's centers. The crappy signage, old buildings and general lack of landscaping is really awful. Too bad City of ATL won't stand up to them and mandate some change in concrete/asphalt to greenspace ratio.. because currently it's about 98% concrete/asphalt and 2% greenspace.

Scotty said...

I can't say that I'll ever shop at hhgreg (never had a need to before, or one close enough to go to, and their commercials are annoying) but it will be nice to not have that space vacant. I'm not sure that they'll be too successful in the Buckhead market though, but I could be wrong.

Trey M said...

The hi-fi buys space is part of the Buckhead Atlanta development that was recently taken over by Oliver McMillian. The building is about to be converted to construction offices for phase 1 of the development and will eventually become retail. http://www.neighbornewspapers.com/stories/Buckhead-Atlanta-pre-construction-coming-up,183602

concrete repair in calgary said...

I like the structured design of the building. It is polished cement over a tough overlay of the asphalt.

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