Ponce City Market developer, Alpharetta team up in NHL hockey pursuit

Like the recent Winter Olympics hockey finals, metro Atlanta’s north OTP competition for a hypothetical NHL team is heating up once again. 

Global real estate firm Jamestown, best known in Atlanta as the developer behind adaptive-reuse landmark Ponce City Market, announced today it plans to work hand-in-hand with the City of Alpharetta, Fulton County, and the owner of aging North Point Mall to craft an arena-centric mall redevelopment plan to lure the National Hockey League back to the metro. 

Jamestown plans to collaborate with mall owner New York Life to oversee pre-development work and create a long-term vision for turning the 100-acre Alpharetta property into a sports-anchored, mixed-use entertainment district enticing enough for a potential NHL franchise. 

Jamestown has begun feasibility studies to determine the suburban-style mall site’s full potential. The company is also scheduled to take over property management of the mall on March 1. 

“We think this is a great location for an NHL team and, hopefully, our efforts will attract an owner who wants to acquire an expansion team and bring hockey back to Atlanta,” Tim Perry, Jamestown’s chief investment officer, said in an announcement today. 

“As an established commercial retail corridor with the transportation infrastructure in place to support a dense mix of uses,” Perry continued, “the site is well positioned for redevelopment and to accommodate event and game day traffic associated with an NHL hockey arena.” 

Jamestown and New York Life expect to share specifics of the site plan as it comes together in coming weeks and months as part of the city’s rezoning process. 

The development mix will generally include multifamily housing, retail, office, hotels, and yes public transit alongside a cutting-edge arena geared toward enticing the NHL back to town, officials said today. 

Working alongside Jamestown will be Machete Group, a development and real estate advisory firm that specializes in building stadiums, sports arenas, and mixed-use districts, with NHL, NFL, NBA, MLS, MiLB, NWSL, Olympics, Premier League, and WNBA venues in its portfolio from China to Brooklyn. (Machete Group also helped create Skyline Park, the throwback amusement piece atop Ponce City Market.) 

North Point Mall—acquired by New York Life in 2021—originally opened to much fanfare in 1993, marking one of the country's largest indoor shopping malls at the time. More recently, like many metro malls of its type, the property has struggled with vacancies as retailers flocked to more trendy and walkable districts such as Avalon. 

Four years ago, Texas-based developer Trademark Property Company compiled plans for a $500-million, mixed-use overhaul of North Point Mall that would have covered 84 acres. Pushback over the amount of apartments included in those plans was fierce, and the proposal ultimately failed to gain city council approval, eventually fading from headlines.

In November, the Alpharetta City Council shot life into the mall’s revitalization prospects by creating a Tax Allocation District that aims to incentivize infrastructure improvements for redevelopment across a vast, 646-acre area covering the mall and nearby commercial properties. 

Frances Bohn, Jamestown’s director of development and construction, said his company’s general goal is to “pair a state-of-the-art NHL arena with walkable streets, activated public spaces, and a dynamic mix of multifamily [residences], shops, offices, and hospitality in alignment with the city’s vision for the future.” 

Whatever Jamestown and company put together in Alpharetta will have to compete with a $3-billion concept that gained steam last year about six miles up Ga. Highway 400 in Forsyth County—one of Georgia’s most affluent and fastest-growing counties.  

The Gathering at South Forsyth has made key hires and scored government approvals despite requiring several hundred million dollars in public financing to be feasible. 

First proposed in spring 2023, the concept by Vernon Krause—a car dealership entrepreneur and head of Krause Sports and Entertainment, turned potential developer—would take shape on 100 acres he owns along the highway. 

In terms of scope, The Gathering could rival Braves-anchored The Battery Atlanta in Cobb County, but all of it—including $350 million in tax incentives tentatively approved by the Forsyth County Commission—hinges on the NHL deciding to award metro Atlanta its third pro hockey franchise. 

And by all indications, that's no sure bet. 

The NHL’s return to the metro would be welcome for legions of hockey fans, ending a long drought of local pro hockey options. 

Atlanta’s Flames relocated to Calgary in 1980, and following a dozen years in downtown Atlanta, the Thrashers decamped to Winnipeg in 2011. Metro Atlanta’s population has swollen by more than 1.5 million people since the Thrashers skedaddled to Canada, making it the second largest U.S. market without a pro hockey team right now, following only Houston.

NHL brass has given no indication when they’ll decide on expansion, but NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has said Atlanta’s past two failures to keep NHL franchises here won’t count against the region.

Last summer, hundreds of readers on these pages responded to a poll asking them to rate their confidence an NHL team will return to metro Atlanta soon. The most popular response by an overwhelming margin (44 percent) was this: “Yes, it’s happening. Third time’s a charm.”

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