Stonecrest officials voted this week to move forward with the sale of a former Sears building and its surrounding land at the Mall at Stonecrest.
The city purchased the land in 2019 and intended to transform it into a public safety center, including a precinct for the DeKalb County Police Department. However, that vision have been abandoned, and the city is poised to sell the property, located at 2929 Turner Hill Road, to Stonecrest Resorts, LLC for $2.4 million.
“Those plans have been trashed, obviously,” Councilman Jimmy Clanton told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The buyer is an affiliate of Urban Retail Properties, LLC, which has managed the Mall at Stonecrest since 2012. In March, the mall was purchased by a Florida-based venture capital firm, which announced a lofty vision for the site, including a sports and entertainment complex, space for an aquarium, a cosmetics superstore, an apartment complex and other projects.
During Monday’s Stonecrest Urban Redevelopment Authority meeting, city financial advisor Edmund Wall said the buyer agreed to pay $500,000 at closing and the rest six months after closing. The unanimous vote to move forward did not close the sale, but it did show the city agrees to the buyer’s terms. Clanton, the URA’s vice chair, said he hopes the sale will be finalized in the next week or two.
The city issued revenue bonds to finance the purchase of the property, including the 157,000-square foot building. The bonds were worth $2,215,000, according to Clanton.
A week after purchasing the former Sears property, Stonecrest bought a former Sam’s Club for nearly $3 million. Mayor Jason Lary previously said he envisioned a new city hall at that site. It has served multiple purposes over the past year, including use as a voting location and a COVID-19 testing and vaccination site.
Clanton said the future of the former Sam’s Club property is “on the back of (the council’s) minds,” but they have not publicly discussed making any changes to the initial vision for that property.
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