Jamestown Joins Bid To Lure NHL Team To North Point Mall
The owner of Alpharetta’s North Point Mall will turn to the developer and operator of Ponce City Market and San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square to transform the aging mall into a mixed-use hockey arena worthy of an NHL franchise.
New York Life Insurance Co. has tapped Jamestown to handle redevelopment entitlements with the city of Alpharetta to shape the mall space into a “sports-anchored, mixed-use entertainment district” that will “position the site for a potential NHL franchise expansion to the greater Atlanta Metro,” Jamestown said in a press release Thursday.
The developer will conduct feasibility studies to determine the 100-acre site’s “full potential,” according to the release. Jamestown Director of Development Frances Bohn said the goal will be to pair the stadium with walkable streets, public spaces and commercial real estate.
Jamestown will also oversee the mall’s property management beginning March 1.
Jamestown Chief Investment Officer Tim Perry said the mall is well positioned in an established commercial retail corridor, with the transportation infrastructure in place to support a dense mix of uses.
“We think this is a great location for an NHL team and, hopefully, our efforts will attract an owner who wants to acquire an expansion team and bring hockey back to Atlanta,” Perry said in the release.
Jamestown, New York Life, the NHL, the city of Alpharetta and Forsyth County didn’t respond to messages seeking comment as of press time.
For New York Life to win an NHL franchise, it will have to win a face-off against a nearby rival vying for the same goal.
Earlier this month, the city of Alpharetta created a tax allocation district to help finance the planned redevelopment of North Point Mall and a 17,000-to-18,000-seat arena, Atlanta News First previously reported.
A little more than 7 miles north of North Point, Krause Auto Group CEO Vernon Krause is leading a group in Forsyth County proposing a $3B mixed-use project anchored by an 18,500-seat ice hockey arena called The Gathering at South Forsyth.
All this is being done despite the fact that NHL officials have yet to commit to bringing hockey back to Atlanta, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
The two developments are still in the early stages, and NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN in September that the league views both bids as aspirational.
Last year, the NHL informed franchise owners that expanding beyond the 32 teams could cost at least $2B in franchise fees, almost a billion dollars more than was paid to relocate a franchise from Arizona to Salt Lake City in 2024, Sportico reported.
New York Life took possession of North Point Mall in 2021 after Brookfield Property Partners ceded a $202M loan in a deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure transaction. Since then, it has been working on a redevelopment vision for the 1.3M SF mall.
North Point Mall, on the east side of Georgia 400, was developed by Homart Development Co., a subsidiary of Sears, in 1993. It rapidly became the retail juggernaut of Alpharetta, a city 25 miles north of Downtown Atlanta. But Alpharetta’s shopping dynamic has increasingly shifted to the luxury walkable mixed-use Avalon project on the west side of Georgia 400 and has suffered from lower consumer traffic.
CORRECTION, FEB. 26, 4:55 P.M. ET: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified the location of Ponce City Market. The project is in Atlanta.
