Mall of Georgia co-developer, Streets of Buckhead visionary, dies at 70

Carter, co-developer of the Mall of Georgia who also led revitalization of Savannah’s Broughton Street, died Sunday at his family’s hunting plantation in Madison, according to a family obituary published in the AJC. He was 70. A cause of death was not released.

Bob Peterson, chairman of Carter (formerly Carter & Associates), the firm Carter’s father founded, said Ben Carter was the envy of many peers because he knew how to seal deals.

“Most of his developments were large and impactful,” Peterson said. “But he was always in front of the curve and was a fabulous salesman.”

‘That’s life’

Benjamin Munnerlyn Carter was born in Atlanta the day after Christmas in 1953, to the late Jane Munnerlyn and the late Atlanta real estate developer Frank Carter Jr.

Ben Carter graduated from the Lovett School and earned a degree in political science from American University in Washington, D.C. He joined his dad’s real estate services firm, then known as Carter & Associates, as an industrial broker.

After his father’s death, Carter launched his own firm. He and famed developer Scott Hudgens teamed to build the Mall of Georgia, the state’s largest mall, near Buford. Carter’s company also developed Jacksonville, Florida’s, open-air St. Johns Town Center. Both were huge successes in the late 1990s and 2000s.

As a kid, Carter used to ride the bus from Brookwood Hills to the Buckhead Triangle to shop, eat burgers and pal around. After building the Mall of Georgia, he returned to his old stamping grounds.

By the late 1990s, Buckhead’s club scene had turned violent and disruptive. Two men were stabbed to death in a Buckhead club the night of the 2000 Super Bowl in Atlanta, which led city leaders to crack down.

“My children did the parties, and every night my wife and I would just hope they came home,” Carter said in a 2014 AJC interview.

Carter hatched a plan to turn the low-slung nightclubs and dives into the most luxurious destination in the South.

He cobbled together dozens of properties, paying above market prices in the heart of Atlanta’s glitziest neighborhood, and lined up commitments for exclusive hotels such as a Baccarat, jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels and planned exclusive high-rise residences.

George Rohrig, the founder of Cartel Properties, worked alongside Carter as he bought land for Streets of Buckhead. Rohrig’s company either owned or leased to tenants many of the properties Carter wanted to buy. No other developer in the city at the time could’ve done what Carter did on that project, he said.

“He gave us something to build on,” Rohrig said. “He gave Buckhead a tremendous boost. What he left us with is incredible.”

Credit: Hyosub Shin

Credit: Hyosub Shin

But the project, like many others across the region, came to a halt during the Great Recession as the global economy melted down. Carter scaled back, and he later said he met with 117 banks and investor groups across the nation over 18 months in a bid to obtain fresh financing to keep Streets going.

Motionless cranes hovered over a fenced-in 8-acre hole at Peachtree and Roswell roads, the stalled project upsetting many in Buckhead. In late 2010, new developer Dene Oliver and his firm OliverMcMillan took over.

Sam Massell, a former Atlanta mayor and founding president of the Buckhead Coalition, said in 2014 that Carter’s vision “ … would have been extremely difficult to achieve even in the best economic times.”

“The economy just did it in,” said Massell, who died in 2022.

OliverMcMillan swapped planned hotels and condos for luxury apartments, but otherwise kept Carter’s uber-luxurious vision, opening the project under a new name in 2014.

Credit: J. Scott Trubey/STAFF

Credit: J. Scott Trubey/STAFF

“That’s life,” Carter told the AJC at the time. “My hope was that it would be finished and I’m delighted Dene and his team have finished it. It’s substantially what we originally planned.”

The project, now known as the Buckhead Village District under new ownership, is home to luxury retailers such Dior, Hermès and Patek Philippe.

‘I kept going’

After the recession, Carter returned to his retail roots, developing a sprawling Tanger outlet mall in Pooler, near the coast.

His attention soon turned to Savannah, where he acquired dozens of historic buildings on Broughton Street, the city’s historic commercial corridor.

Credit: J. Scott Trubey

Credit: J. Scott Trubey

Carter bought the structures, fixed them up and leased them to high-end retailers and restaurants with residences added on the upper floors.

“I started acquiring (buildings) and I kept getting encouragement from my retailer friends,” he said in a 2014 interview. “They said, ‘Keep going.’ So I kept going.”

Joseph Marinelli, CEO of Visit Savannah, the city’s tourism agency, said Carter ruffled the feathers of some longtime business owners, but his goals for Broughton Street were positive.

“Ben was a visionary when he came to this city, albeit a controversial visionary,” Marinelli said. “He was probably a little bit ahead of his time as it related to the evolution of Savannah and the retail presentation of Broughton Street and the historic district.”

The recruitment of national retailers rankled some, Marinelli said, but “I always thought that Ben’s idea of complementing the local retail scene with some national brands was a good plan.”

It turned out, the financiers and retailers he met barnstorming the nation to plan and later save Streets of Buckhead started to call on him to do new deals, Carter said.

Carter is survived by Patricia, his wife of 47 years. He’s also survived by their daughter, Palmer Carter and her children, Willow and Skylar, of Atlanta; and son Benjamin M. Carter, Jr., daughter-in-law Elizabeth and their children, Benjamin III and Mary Beth of Newnan.

A memorial service was held Thursday at First Presbyterian Church on Peachtree Street NW in Midtown.