'This isn't a startup anymore': Cobb Galleria's $150M+ plans for redevelopment

Apr. 5—CUMBERLAND — Tucked into the heart of the Cobb Galleria complex is a time capsule of a bygone era.

Through glass skylights, sunlight streams down on a stand of trees set into the tiled floor. Storefronts sit silent on a Thursday afternoon, especially without a convention to drum up activity.

The heyday of the Galleria Specialty Shops, a mall sitting inside the overall footprint of the 320,000-square-foot Cobb Galleria convention center, is past — long past.

Bob Voyles, a real estate executive and board member for the Cobb-Marietta Coliseum and Exhibit Hall Authority (which owns and operates the complex), said it's been a while since the mall was a going concern.

"Before I was on the board, which was 2004," Voyles said of the last time the mall was economically viable. "The tenants we have in there, they're great tenants. But it is not long-term sustainable."

Indeed, going back to the start, the Galleria mall was never the hit its developers hoped it would be, said Tad Leithead, a former chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission who worked on the project when it first started in the early 1980s.

"The idea was that there were four big anchors that were across the street at Cumberland Mall ... and we would be a specialty boutique mall," Leithead said. "People who were coming to the anchored mall across the street would also be customers for our shopping. And some of it worked."

Yet while some of the restaurants, more popular shops, and an AMC movie theater did well, "the Galleria mall never really stepped up and survived on its own," he said.

Marietta Mayor Steve Tumlin, who also serves on the Exhibit Hall Authority's board, agreed.

"The kingpin was Cumberland Mall," Tumlin recalled. "...It had the four big boys — Rich's, Davison's, Sears and JC Penney — and it was amazing to have those four big anchors in one place."

By the late 1990s, the Galleria mall was floundering. Then-Cobb Chairman Bill Byrne said at the time business was "horrible" as tenants constantly turned over and the facility had failed to compete with Cumberland Mall.

The Exhibit Hall Authority purchased the property in 2000 for $4.6 million, and the hope was that the convention business would be able to lift the struggling mall, Leithead said.

But that was not to be. The convention business took off, but the mall again failed to ride the wave.

"It really put us on the map as far as competing for that mid-level convention business. We're not the World Congress Center, but ... it's been one of the more successful convention centers in the country," Leithead said.

Today, the mall is home to about 20 remaining shops. Voyles said they're paying month to month leases that cover operating costs and little else, "so that the space isn't dark."

The steady decline of the specialty shops has spurred interest in a major redevelopment of the Galleria complex that would include razing the mall. In its place would be built a marquee hotel and a handful of new restaurants.

That idea itself was kicked around for a time back in the 1990s.

"The authority has always believed — and I think rightly so — that more privatized hotel rooms, more hotel rooms that have direct access into the convention center ... the more competition that will be in the marketplace, and the more options that convention here would have," Leithead said.

Voyles said the project can now finally start getting some real traction. That's thanks to a new revenue-sharing agreement between the authority, the Cobb Board of Commissioners, and Cobb's cities that ensures the authority will have a reliable cash flow for the next 30 years.

Nailing down the agreement was crucial so the authority could plan to issue bonds for the redevelopment project, which is estimated to be a $150-170 million investment.

"They already do share in the revenue, but their revenue stream is improved over what it was previously without harming us, and that's important. You know, this isn't a startup anymore. It's been a very successful facility," Voyles said. "...All of us on the board are deeply appreciative to the commission for extending that. That's a vote of confidence from them in this authority."

As to the project itself, Voyles said one of the Galleria's few shortcomings is the lack of a hotel on-site. While there are more than a half-dozen hotels within walking distance of the convention center, the Galleria's patrons are competing with those of the various other attractions in the Cumberland area.

"The (Renaissance) Waverly was able to have a long-term contract with Ernst & Young for large blocks of their rooms, week in and week out," Voyles said. "It's great for the Waverly, but it causes a problem for us. Because now the Waverly is basically taken out of commission for any event that we want to do ... If anything, I think it will improve our positioning as a market option for people wanting to come and use these facilities."

If its neighbors are any indication, the demand is there. Braves Development Company CEO Mike Plant said at a March Cumberland event that The Battery Atlanta "could have used a couple hundred more (hotel) rooms, easily."

"We lose a lot of business, because we don't have enough rooms and enough meeting space with other big companies that would like to come to the Battery," Plant added.

Jerry Nix, Exhibit Hall Authority board chairman, said the Galleria convention center has likewise been losing business to other venues for that reason.

"We're losing them to the convention center down south at the (Atlanta) airport, and you see that they're expanding out there at Gwinnett, so we need to move forward on that," Nix said, referring to the renovations of the Gas South Convention Center in Gwinnett County that wrapped up this year.

With business at Truist Park and the Battery booming, Leithead agreed, saying "I think the demand for that hotel is at an all-time high," adding "It makes an awful lot of sense for them to be dusting off some of those old plans."

Though there's much planning still to do, Voyles said, the general idea would be to demolish the specialty shops and place a large plaza and driveway near the existing plaza in front of Murph's restaurant.

Along the convention center's northern side, large glass walls would look out over that plaza, and the hotel would be built on the site of the current Cobb Travel and Tourism offices. The bond issuance would cover the cost of site preparation around the hotel, while a developer would pay for construction of the hotel itself.

The project will likely also include expansions to the Galleria's ballroom space, and a general cosmetic update for the convention center and parking decks. The design will also be geared toward incorporating the Cumberland Sweep, a forthcoming trail and shuttle system to connect the district across its web of interstates.

Kim Menefee, executive director of the Cumberland Community Improvement District, said the Galleria "is very important in terms of the number of visitors that they bring in through the convention center each year for their meetings and their conventions."

As to the Sweep, she said, "Right now, we're in design on the first segment on Galleria Drive, and we are working with them as a major stakeholder in the project. Because we want to make sure that their visitors can easily access the walking and biking paths, as well as the autonomous shuttle system.

"We want to help their visitors be able to go over and enjoy the Battery or cover a mall or the other assets that are within the district and make it more walkable (and) bikable," she added.

Voyles said the cosmetic updates to the convention center combined with the new hotel should bring the Galleria up to speed with its competitors.

"This is a very dramatic design," Voyles said, gesturing toward a conceptual rendering. "It's not going to look entirely like this, but it will be an open courtyard plaza, and it will be opening up the space in a way that is not today."

As for next steps, the authority hopes to complete an economic development study of the project by the end of summer. After that, a second design phase would take four to six months, with ground being broken by early 2024.