Another department store is shrinking its metro Atlanta presence with news coming Thursday that Belk plans to close its store at Town Center at Cobb in Kennesaw "at some point in February." The Belk, a legacy Parisian store, opened at the suburban mall in 2007 after it acquired the Parisian brand.
News of Belk's closure comes on the heels of upcoming closures of both Macy's and Kohl's stores, including local stores in Duluth.
Following the Belk closure, Town Center will be anchored by JCPenney and both Macy's and Macy's Furniture Gallery stores. Sears, one of the mall's original tenants from its 1986 opening, closed in 2020.
Once owned by mega-mall operator Simon, Town Center at Cobb was purchased in 2023 by Kohan Retail Investments, a company known for buying struggling malls.
Belk re-entered the metro Atlanta market in a major way with the 2006 purchase of Birmingham-based Parisian from then owner Saks Inc. In 2007, Belk re-branded many of the Parisian stores with the Belk brand.
In metro Atlanta, these conversions included former Parisian stores at Phipps Plaza in Buckhead, Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth, and Town Center at Cobb in Kennesaw. Parisian also had a presence at North Point Mall in Alpharetta, but instead of occupying the former Parisian space, Belk chose to reopen in the previous Lord & Taylor location in 2007, with a new 12 screen AMC Theatres opening in place of the former Parisian pad. Belk, however, exited the mall in September 2009 and Von Maur opened in the space in November 2011.
Belk has over the years closed all of the other metro Atlanta legacy Parisian stores including Gwinnett Place (2013) and Phipps Plaza (2018)
Parisian also had stores at The Mall at Stonecrest in Lithonia and Northlake Mall in Tucker, but those were not reopened as Belk and instead became Kohl's which were subsequently closed in 2016.
Charlotte-based Belk was acquired for $3 billion by New York private equity firm Sycamore Partners in late 2015. This past July, the company completed a "value-maximizing deleveraging transaction," that saw Sycamore replaced by the retailer's first and second lien lenders. "Through the transaction, certain of Belk’s existing lenders, including funds associated with global investment firm KKR and Hein Park, will take controlling interest in the business from Sycamore," according to a report by industry publication Chain Store Age.
Established in Monroe, North Carolina in 1888, Belk today spans 16 primarily southeastern states with nearly 300 stores. The company's metro Atlanta presence includes stores at The Forum Peachtree Corners in Peachtree Corners, Mall of Georgia in Buford, Snellville Pavilion in Snellville and Village Green in West Cobb. The company also operates one "Outlet Store" (another former Parisian) at Arbor Place Mall in Douglasville.
What is your fondest memory of Town Center at Cobb? What would you like to see happen to Town Center at Cobb? What is your favorite traditional department store?
Please share your thoughts below
17 comments:
Always loved Belk's when it was at Phipps, also shopped there at stores in the Carolinas when visiting in-laws. Sad to see them struggle.
The also have a store in Cumming in Lakeland plaza.
Didn't even know Belk still existed anywhere 🤷
But it wasn’t a Parisian, the topic of this story.
It was a great shopping trip then! Belk’s for basics, Lord’s & Taylor’s for dresses, Saks’s for suits, then lunch at Jonny Rockets’s!
My wife works at Belk, it’s got lots of problems, nothing like it was years ago.
There are Belk stores all over Atlanta. This store was disgustingly filthy. Nothing was ever organized. They’d pull stocking racks out and just leave them everywhere. They only ever had one checkout open on the floor and you’d have to hunt it down because no one was actually standing near one. I’d basically buy things online to avoid this store and only come in to return items, which they’d made a miserable event during and following Covid. Their Covid policies involved stacking everyone at one counter to purchase and return in lines 20-30 people long. This store deserves to close. Management was completely inept
Random tidbits: The first Parisian store to open outside of Alabama was in Columbus at Peachtree Mall in 1985 (Wikipedia is wrong - the Florida stores opened in 1986). When Parisian was purchased by Belk, they opted to close the Peachtree Mall store rather than convert it to Belk. Columbus has *never* had a Belk location.
Belk in Marietta is terrible…not only can you not find a sales clerk, when they finally ring out it takes forever because they are so slow. I wonder if Belk is intentionally sabotaging itself , no reputable manager would allow the stores to become this disorganized.
His article does talk about the other presence in the area and that's where this one would also fit.
I recall being underwhelmed by Belk when they took over from Parisian but it was minor at first. Like most retail it's been a "race to the bottom" with perpetual sales on merchandise that lacks quaility or overly appealing.
Town Center Mall should just be demolished as, like most indoor malls, the appeal is gone.
Some of the area could be KSU lodging. Hopefully it’s not turned into one of those all too frequent depressing generic Soviet style “mixed-use” ‘hoods. Pack the people in like sardines 😞.
They have more than one other store in the area.
I found a pile of clothes in the ladies dressing room one time topped off with a pair of soiled bloomers!!
Columbus has *never* had a Nordstrom
“Nothing was ever organized”
I worked at the mall. Every time I went, it was clean and organized. I will agree with the low staff comment though.
Interesting how Channel 2 said that Belk announced this “today” as the power was shut off at Town Center. I guess they didn’t bother to check the facts
Post a Comment