“12 Things to Know about Lenox Square Mall.” AJC.com: Atlanta News, Sports, Atlanta Weather, Business News. AJC, 27 July 2009. Web. 16 Apr. 2016.
Lenox Square Mall is a high end shopping center in the heart of downtown Atlanta , ranking in the top best malls of Georgia. Celebrities such as Rihanna , Yung Thug , and Beyonce has visited the mall which played a role in Lenox hype and popularity. Lenox mall was opened in 1959 by Ed Noble, the grandson of a wealthy Oklahoma oilman. The place started from 74-acres of a local home which was later sold to build the infamous Lenox mall. The article , “12 Things To Know about Lenox Square Mall”briefly explains the small but interesting facts about the people , stores, and history of the shopping center. Lenox did not always have the high end retail stores like Louis Vuitton and Michael Kors. Instead , it held a Walgreen’s , a movie theater , bowling alley , and more. Furthermore, according to AJC , 40 percent of Lenox customers are tourists , which leads to my conclusion on how built environments can take shape within Atlanta by attracting many tourist and foreigners from across the world to visit the up-scale shopping center.This built environment plays a huge role in Atlanta by increasing customers to move near the attraction , for entrepreneurs to build high end restaurants , and homes to comfort the customers, and for transportation companies such as Marta to have easy train and bus access inside the mall to influence more volume not only in their mall but around downtown Atlanta as a whole.
Clanton, Nancy. “7 Atlanta Locations Called Overrated.” AJC.com: Atlanta News, Sports, Atlanta Weather, Business News. 19 Jan. 2016. Web. 16 Apr. 2016.
Lenox Square Mall is known for its popularity and hype , which makes its believable to understand why the shopping center has made the top 7 overrated places in Atlanta by AJC. Lenox Mall is one of the most popular shopping center in Georgia , and some of its “fame” has come from known rappers promoting the mall in their songs , and from high end celebrities visiting the mall themselves. Lenox attracts their customers by their their spacious and nicely designed interior , which takes over about 74 acres. Furthermore , the mall hold about every store from high end retailers such as Gucci and Louis VUITTON to the more affordable retailers such as Forever 21 and Rue 21. Even though the mall holds their crown for being one of the best malls in Georgia , they placed number 5 of being the most overrated places in Atlanta according to AJC. AJC explains that they have surveyed people across Atlanta to decipher the most overrated places in Atlanta and explains that Lenox mall , is just another jammed pack mall. which concludes to how built environments can influence the volume of customers just by their popularity and how the mall can psychologically make people think that the mall is overrated just by their “jammed packed parking lots” and reputation.
Mckay, John. “The Birth of Lenox Square Mall.” Examiner.com. 7 July 2012. Web. 16 Apr. 2016.
The history of Lenox Mall shows how the Mall came from a cotton and corn farm ,to a known upscale shopping center in under 20 years. Before Lenox mall , the 74 acre space was filled by a farm owned by John Simpkins who witness and escaped the wrath of General William Sherman in 1864. Simpkins continues to live on his farm after the waft but later sold his property in 1897 before his passing in 1926. He sold his farm to the president of First National Bank of Atlanta , John Ottley , who envisioned a potential summer home on a hill to escape the noise and population in Atlanta. Ottley built the amazing 12 room summer house called Joyeuse which was used to throw parties and ballrooms until he passed in 1945. From there , the summer home was soon reused for small businesses and apartments for wartime veterans. On May 22, 1956 the property was resold again to ED Noble who seen the potential of a future high end mall called Lenox square. Noble and his architects soon began to work on the the design of Lenox square. First , they flatten out the hill where the summer home and apartments took place to level out the land. Then they built the Mall with a bowling alley , and indoor golf range to attract new customers to the attraction. Despite the warnings many investors seen by creating Lenox mall by stating that “no one lived out here ” (Mckay ) , Noble still decided to open lenox square mall on August 3, 1959. Lenox was not as popular and upscale as it is today. “It was more like an extended and multi-leveled strip mall, with an open center court decorated by flying concrete buttress-styled arches, over grassy areas flanked by concrete benches, and several small collections of sculptures depicting Southern folk tales”.(Mckay). Today ,Lenox is more than a shopping center than a attraction site , and is know for their high end stores and fancy restaurants.In conclusion , the once cotton farm where “nobody lived at ” is the home of the infamous Lenox Mall which attracts residents , business opportunities , and many tourist from the United States. Lenox is a prime example on how built environments can influence the volume of a city and the the type of customers that visit Lenox on the daily basis.
Mitchell, Wright. “Lenox Square Site Once Was the Home of Great Joy.” Reporter Newspapers. 03 June 2010. Web. 16 Apr. 2016.
Before the High end shopping center , Lenox Square’s land was once owned by a wealthy man named John Ottley who used the land as a summer house called Joyeuse back in the late 1800’s. Before Lenox , Ottley build the property to get away from the city , because back then Buck head was classified as the “suburbs”. Ottley and his family used the house for ball rooms and parties and loved the house so much that they permanently moved in the house in 1913. During their stay the house was occupied by 12 marvelous rooms and had a stable full of “sporty horses” in the backyard. The interior and exterior design was built beautifully as the front porch made with red tile that continued the length of the house which led to the front entrance. “The interior of the home was like a scene from “The Great Gatsby.” The walls were heavily beamed in dark wood, and a large library dominated the front of the house” (Wright). The Ottley’s stayed in the house until Ottley death in 1945 , and from then entrepreneur Ed Noble quickly designed the later on upscale mall. In conclusion , The Up bringing of the built environment (Lenox square ) , has turned Buck Head from being a quiet suburban area to a busy and noisy urban area known today.