Stonecrest Resorts, a commercial real estate development company, Monday announced phase two plans to turn the former Sears building in The Mall at Stonecrest into a family entertainment and lifestyle destination.
The $17 million adaptive reuse project will be called Priví and will feature a food hall with several entertainment concepts on the upper level and a health and wellness center, an event facility, and a full-service co-working space designed for creative industry professionals on the lower level.
Financing for the second phase of the project settled last week with pre-development already underway, according to Monday’s announcement. The project’s first phase of development was the opening of SeaQuest Interactive Aquarium in November 2021.
“We’ve already enhanced the Mall’s offerings with our financial investment in the opening of SeaQuest,” said Vaughn D. Irons, principal and developer of Stonecrest Resorts, in a press release. “We were able to accomplish both phases of development with private dollars and without asking the taxpayers to fund this project.”
The 15.1-acre parcel, which includes two buildings totaling 143,000 square feet, was purchased from the City of Stonecrest Urban Redevelopment Authority for $2.1 million in a sale that closed last October.
“This is the Stonecrest URA’s first development project and Stonecrest Resorts delivered upon their promises,” said Jazzmin Cobble, chair of the Stonecrest Urban Redevelopment Agency. “Our city government is looking forward to seeing additional attractions like this across the entire city that is both safe and mutually beneficial to all the residents and stakeholders of Stonecrest.”
The upcoming renovations will introduce new lifestyle elements to the mall under the brand name Priví, which is a play on the word privilege and the term privy.
“Privi is designed to be a one-of-a-kind culinary, entertainment, and tourism destination that will evolve into the new gathering place for the East Metro Atlanta Community and draw visitors from around the Southeast Region,” Irons, a Stonecrest resident since 2004, said. “We developed a project that responded to the community’s desire for elevated experiences, better dining options, and premier customer service,” he added.
The building is 85 percent leased and the full slate of tenants will be revealed in future announcements. The project is separated into five lifestyle components: a food hall, retail, health and wellness, and meeting and work space.
A 50,000 square foot chef-driven food hall including healthy food and beverage concepts, as well as sit-down restaurants and cocktail bars, will be the centerpiece of the project. The food hall will be curated and operated by Good Food & Company’s Hospitality Group. Good Food & Company is well known in Atlanta for concepts such as the Atlanta Breakfast Club, ABC Chicken & Waffles, Atlanta Breakfast Club at the City of Refuge, and most recently Le Petit Marche. The executive chef and co-owner Chef Anthony Sanders and co-owner Osiris Ballard have developed unique concepts that feature cuisines with global influences.
“We’ve been quietly working on this for a year and as we became familiar with the demographics of East Metro Atlanta we embraced Stonecrest immediately,” said Ballard. We are going to bring some of our flagship restaurants combined with new chef-driven concepts and gourmet options.” Some of the food & beverage concepts coming to the food hall include Atlanta Breakfast Club, an upscale fine-dining restaurant, a hip-hop-themed karaoke concept, a rib and comedy joint, sushi, and a wine bar and market.
The experiential retail program will include a music and bookstore with a coffee shop and home goods. An upscale men’s and women’s clothing and shoe store bringing more cutting-edge fashion and bespoke clothing to the mall’s current offerings. The store will feature fashion designers and stylists instead of typical sales personnel. Planning is also underway to include a cigar emporium.
The health and wellness complex will feature nine resort-style establishments including a massage and facial day spa, an infrared sauna studio, a vitamin therapy medical institute, a mixed martial arts training and fitness center, oxygen and juice bar, a healthy food cafe, and a mental health and family therapy concept.
A creatives incubator workspace will provide opportunities for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, digital content developers, and creative industry professionals such as filmmakers to accelerate their projects or business growth. The 18,000 square foot facility will include a co-working space with meeting rooms and private offices; studio space for photography, podcast, and digital media productions; and a 6,000 square foot multipurpose event & meeting space that will be the largest secular meeting venue in the area accommodating corporate training, weddings, banquets, and other entertainment events. The venue will provide support to the hotels immediately surrounding the mall and attract more activities in the Stonecrest sub-market.
Family entertainment offerings include SeaQuest, an ax-throwing concept, a comedy venue, an escape room, interactive golf simulators with a full slate of gaming options, a multimedia art studio that offers splatter painting sessions, art classes, and birthday parties.
Upon completion, the project will bring more than 560 jobs to the local economy and generate new taxes for the city of Stonecrest and DeKalb County by bringing the property back from exemption onto the tax rolls. It also will support the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) by attracting additional spending that creates an increase in sales taxes. Renovations are set to begin in spring 2022, with a planned opening of the lower level in summer 2022. The upper-level food hall will be complete by spring 2023.
