[Editor’s note: As of Wednesday, June 3, Lenox Square, Phipps Plaza, and Shops Around Lenox have reopened. Please check with individual retailers and restaurants for hours of operation.]
Lenox Square, Phipps Plaza, and several Shops Around Lenox retailers for the second time in recent months have closed down indefinitely.
Shuttering the Buckhead shopping centers arrive after a weekend of protests and riots—which started with peaceful marches against police violence spurred by the death of George Floyd last week in Minneapolis—left many retailers and restaurants with damaged storefronts and looted merchandise.
“Many of our stores will be closed today due to protests at Shops Around Lenox and plan to reopen as soon as possible,” a spokesperson for the retail center Monday told What Now Atlanta (WNA) in an email.
Shops Around Lenox, owned by RREEF, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, sustained no damage, however, the spokesperson said.
Reps for neighboring Lenox Square and nearby Phipps Plaza, both owned by Simon Property Group, confirmed with WNA on Monday that the high-end Buckhead malls had also closed and that a timeline for reopening was TBD.
These retail centers had only been reopened for a few weeks after being forced to close in April by state mandate in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Although several retailers in The Shops Buckhead Atlanta over the weekend were vandalized including Jimmy Choo, Hermes, and Attom, a concierge for the center on Monday told WNA it was business as usual for the Jamestown mixed-use.
Closer to the City center, Ponce City Market and Krog Street Market (KSM) are also open as of Monday.
KSM did close early on Sunday as a curfew was issued by the Mayor for Atlanta.
“By order of the Mayor of Atlanta, the city is under a 9:00 p.m. curfew until Monday morning, June 1,” KSM wrote in a Facebook post Sunday.
“We will close for business early, by 9:00 p.m. in accordance with the order. (We love you, Atlanta).”
16 Responses
Probably a smart move. Also, how were sales? Seems like this might be a quasi-excuse for remaining closed down for a bit longer while they figure out how to get people in the door.
Why didn’t you name the company that operates the shopping centers?
Hi Curious Reader, we’ve added in the owner of Lenox and Phipps and are working to confirm the owner of Shops Around Lenox. Thanks! ~ CJS
Guess now hundreds of people are now out of jobs who relied on that mall to provide for themselves and their families. These riots seriously hurt those workers and our economy. Good luck to them finding more work during a pandemic. Do these rioters not understand that doing this hurts other like them? They not only hurt white people who may have owned some of the businesses and were employed there… but also many many black and brown people who own stores and were employees as well. This is a horrific shame.
“Do these rioters not understand that doing this hurts other like them? […] many many black and brown people who own stores and were employees as well.”
This isn’t an exclusively black vs white thing, but to answer your question… The rioters don’t care because they’re common criminals who would be elsewhere doing smash-and-grabs, carjackings, vandalism, or low-level B&Es if they weren’t here, using the protests as a cover. The rioters and protesters are not the same people and, for the most part, the protesters are as unhappy about the presence of the looting/rioting/vandalism as everyone else.
The police are responsible for the adversarial relationship with protesters which makes it hard to enforce law and order in the crowd. Watch the video of the protesters in DC turning a troublemaker over to the police. But when you declare a curfew 15 minutes in advance and then start to sweep and clear people from the streets with military tactics, I’d imagine its pretty hard to maintain the trust necessary for these type of interactions. When you declare everyone a criminal, they usually stopping working with you to control actual criminals.
“The rioters and protesters are not the same people”
Repeat until it sinks in.
One doesn’t happen without the other. Time to find better ways to protest if it means creating havoc in the streets and encouraging rioters to show up and exploit the situation.
You don’t stop taking the medicine just because it has side-effects.
I dunno, I’ve often looked for alternatives when I’ve had bad side-effects from medication.
Fair… but I get the sense that this is the last-resort chemo treatment. I’m all ears to alternative, but I think we’re past the “write your congressman” stage.
The rioters were not the protesters, they were hangers on causing wanton chaos. They were a completely different group of people who came to the peaceful protests with bricks and spray paint. See what the mayor of St. Paul said about the people causing the damage not being local. It is the very same thing that occurred here in Atlanta.
Well go ahead and piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining too. They could easily remain open until 6 pm each day, where the likelihood of looting/riots are diminished substantially due to it being in broad daylight. This is a business move due to lack of customers because of Covid. They opened up during this experiment from Hillbilly Kemp, realized what good is opening when there aren’t enough customers to support the retailers, and used the protests/looting as a reason so shut it back down indefinitely.
Criminals like yourself would love to have them open so you can take advantage of the situation further. Smart move by the stores until we get all the trash off the street.
Because nothing screams criminal like a person commenting on a upstart website that focuses on restaurant closures. Ignorance has no boundaries of which whom it touches.
Actually, there has been social media chatter that planned protests would be taking place around 2pm each day. None of them have come to fruition yet but due to caution most retailers have chosen to close in case they do happen. Also, the mall has been pretty busy since it reopened.
So, please explain “pretty busy” because if anyone has been tracking retail sales over the last 2 weeks, the results have been HORRIBLE! It’s cheaper to remain closed. These are facts, not opinion.