COBB COUNTY, Ga. — It hasn’t been the best of weeks for tenants and businesses in and around Town Center Mall. On Tuesday, the power was shut off for most of the property just off Barrett Parkway after the company that owns the Mall didn’t pay their electric bills. The bill was paid and power was restored the next day.
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This weekend, Channel 2′s Bryan Mims talked to the organizer of a monthly car show, staged in the Mall’s parking lot. With the cars come potential customers, boosting foot traffic during the day and helping store owners get people inside their businesses.
Bruce Piefke organizes the Caffeine and Octane car show.
He has to pay monthly rent to the mall’s owner, the Kohen Real Estate Group, which fell behind on paying its power bills.
It is one revved-up, souped-up event. 25-hundred cars. 20 to 30-thousand people. All crowded around a 39-year-old mall that recently stalled.
“It sent a chill through all of us who rely on this great mall to showcase our businesses,” said Piefke. “Especially when you think about restaurants and all the food in freezers and that kind of stuff.”
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Piefke has to pay monthly rent to the mall’s owner, the Kohen Real Estate Group, which fell behind on paying its power bills. So, last Tuesday, Georgia Power pulled the plug. And the mall shut its doors, a mall with more than 170 stores. The department stores Belk, Macy’s and J.C. Penney did stay open because they pay for their power separately from the mall. But the center’s other tenants lost a day of business.
With all of the people in the parking lot, all it takes is an announcement to get those looking at the cars to wander inside.
“This mall, when you walk around, it’s in pretty good shape,” Piefke said. “I mean there are a lot of tenants here.”
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Some of the struggles facing Town Center and other malls come from e-commerce, shoppers who would rather have the things they buy delivered to them at home.
“Because everything is online and you can have it delivered to your house,” Karla Morales said. Morales says it is why she rarely visits the mall anymore.
Shoppers like Morales are why many malls have struggled to keep their doors open. The Kohen Group, who owns Town Center Mall has struggled to pay their bills at other properties and Channel 2 has learned that they have had trouble making payments on the Mall’s water bill.
But the tenants are hopeful that big events like the monthly car show keep people coming in the doors.
“You know, the tenants love us because we brings all of these people to the mall and a lot of them hang out after the show ends,” said Piefke.
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