Home Depot leases former Buckhead store to ‘The Dump'

The Dump actually has plans to expand the existing building by another 30,000 square feet for a total of 178,000 square feet, said David Birnbrey, chairman of the Shopping Center Group, an Atlanta-based retail brokerage. His firm represented both sides of the transaction.

The announcement comes just days after high-end furniture store Beverly Hall decided to liquidate its nearby store, where it was located for more than 50 years. That company is retrenching to its Roswell store and warehouse.

The fate of the former Home Depot store has been a question mark in Atlanta’s real estate community for several years, said Jack Arnold, director of retail leasing for real estate firm Carter. Carter developed nearby Lindbergh City Center, with offices, restaurants and apartments. Arnold said he's happy to see something take over the vacant space.

"It was an eyesore for a long time. And a lot of questions were thrown around about whether it would be redeveloped into a multifamily site," he said. "It was holding the area back. The Dump could help attract other home goods tenants to the area."

Home Depot relocated its store to the  redeveloped Lindbergh Plaza shopping center a few blocks away. The move left an empty big-box store and vast parking lot along one of Atlanta’s busiest corridors and near one of its most affluent communities. Sidney Marcus runs between Buford Highway and Piedmont Roads, with access to I-85 and Ga. 400.

The site at one point was listed for $30 million, with hopes it would be gobbled up by a mixed-use developer. The recession, however, prevented that, Birnbrey said.

Instead, Home Depot was “extremely proactive and creative in not allowing an asset to sit vacant while waiting for its value to return to pre-recession prices," he said. "A lot of people would’ve said they are not going to lease it because they don’t want to take it off the market.”

The Dump has locations in Virginia, the Philadelphia metro area, Houston and Dallas, according to its Web site.

The stores sell deeply discounted furniture purchased from factory overstocks, showrooms and prototypes. The stores are only open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, as a way to keep overhead low.