Macon's big stores move to Eisenhower Parkway
On July 30, 1975, Davison's invited children seven and younger to press their hands into wet concrete along the lower outside wall of its new store.
The store had planned for about 300 of them. About 500 came, and a bronze plaque carrying the date went up beside their prints.
Davison's was one of four department stores that opened Macon Mall that day, with Belk-Matthews, Sears, and JCPenney.
The two-level enclosed mall held more than 100 stores in about a million square feet at 3661 Eisenhower Parkway in Macon, Georgia, between Interstate 75 and Interstate 475, on ground that had once been farm fields and woods.
All four anchors were names Macon already shopped at, and big retailers gave up their downtown locations to take space in the new building.
About 500,000 visits were counted in its first four days.
Westgate Mall, two miles or so down the road, dated from 1961, when it opened as Georgia's first enclosed mall.
The far larger roster on Eisenhower Parkway drew its shoppers and its retailers west, and the center of Macon's shopping moved west with them.
The new mall built a calendar of its own within months.
In August 1975 the Record Bar store held an opening promotion where members of Wet Willie, Grinderswitch, and Cowboy signed autographs for customers.
On November 28, 1975, at 9:45 in the morning, the mall's first Santa came down by helicopter on the lot outside the JCPenney Automotive Center.
Rocky Creek moves for the east wing
Rocky Creek had crossed the eastern side of the land since at least 1938, when it was still woods and fields.
By 1990 the creek ran where Colonial Properties, the developer, wanted a large addition.
An Army Corps of Engineers permit for the work, issued in April 1990, required the stream to be moved into a new channel, and it was.
The east wing cost about $50 million and opened in 1997, east of JCPenney.
It added more than 400,000 square feet and took the mall past 1.4 million, with parking decks behind it and two new department stores, Dillard's and Parisian.
That made six anchors.
Inside the addition, a two-story food court called Cafe Carousel opened, and a children's carousel turned on the upper level.
The bigger mall filled up.
In 2004 it held 143 stores, and about 91 percent of the space its owner controlled was leased, while the department stores' buildings were owned separately.
Parisian closes and Dillard's moves north
The Santa visits that began with a helicopter landing were still going in 2007, from a spot inside near Baskin-Robbins and Sears.
The mall around them had a new owner by then: Colonial Properties had sold it in July 2005, for $133.5 million, to owners tied to the Lightstone group.
New stores in Macon were already opening beyond it: Eisenhower Crossing, an open-air row of big boxes including Target and Best Buy, had opened nearby in 2001.
Belk bought the Parisian chain, and the Parisian at Macon Mall closed in 2007.
A bigger rival opened on March 19, 2008, about 7.5 miles away in north Macon, after two years of construction.
The Shoppes at River Crossing, an open-air center of 750,000 square feet, had Dillard's and Belk among its anchors.
Dillard's moved its Macon store there that year, and by the end of January 2009 its 175,000-square-foot building at Macon Mall was closed.
Belk opened at River Crossing and kept its Macon Mall store as well. The east wing had lost both of its department stores.
Foreclosure, and the east wing comes down
In February 2008, the month before River Crossing opened, the Lightstone owners defaulted on interest and first-mortgage payments tied to the mall.
The lender holding the first mortgage started foreclosure, and a receiver was put in charge of running the property.
Hull Property Group, known then as Hull Storey Gibson, bought the foreclosed mall in 2010.
Hull set out to make the mall smaller and to steady the part of it that dated from 1975.
After the purchase Hull tore down the 1997 east wing, and the original mall got new carpet, new lighting, and opened-up walkways, with repairs under way outside.
By September 2012 the downsizing was finished, ahead of that year's holiday season.
The mall had measured 1,446,000 square feet when it sold in 2005. By 2013 it measured a little over 1.03 million square feet.
The original anchors close and Burlington arrives
Sears closed in 2012.
In March of that year Belk announced it would close its Macon Mall store and keep its stores at River Crossing and in Centerville.
Its clearance sale started that July, and by the end of 2012 that store was gone too. In 2013 Macon Mall was 72 percent occupied.
River Crossing, measured the same way at the same time, was about 94 percent occupied.
On September 25, 2015, Burlington opened on the upper level of the old Sears, in about 69,500 square feet, with about 75 workers who had transferred or been newly hired.
The chain moved over from Westgate Mall, the older center Macon Mall had drawn shoppers away from in 1975.
JCPenney, another of the four stores that had opened the mall, closed on July 31, 2017.
In January 2020 Macy's, in the old Davison's building, announced it would close as well, and a clearance sale followed.
The children's handprints from 1975 were still set in the concrete along that building's lower wall, with the plaque beside them.
Once Macy's left, Burlington was the only department store in the mall.
Hull gives most of the mall to the county
The tenants trading in 2021 included Ole Times Country Buffet, Teriyaki Japan, Finish Line, and B. Turner's, along with military recruiting offices.
That September, Macon-Bibb County announced that Hull Property Group would donate a large part of the mall to the county and its Urban Development Authority.
The stores would stay open.
Around them, the plan called for government offices, restaurants, sports and entertainment, a possible large indoor pickleball center, and a big amphitheater on mall land.
By January 2022 the authority and the county owned most of Macon Mall.
The first design contract covered up to about 104,000 square feet of offices, for the Board of Elections, Planning and Zoning, the Middle Georgia Regional Commission, and a library annex, among others, and every office was meant to be finished by summer 2023.
In November 2021 the county commission had authorized up to $40 million in authority bonds for the amphitheater and the buildout.
By March 2022 the authorization reached up to $44 million.
Pickleball in the old Belk, concerts out front
Rhythm & Rally opened in the former Belk to members on December 18, 2023, and to the public on January 1, 2024.
The old department store held 32 climate-controlled pickleball courts across its two floors, in 166,000 square feet.
The offices took longer than planned.
The Board of Elections began moving into the lower level of the old Sears, below Burlington, in July 2023, after board members had raised concern that the nearest accessible parking sat about 175 yards from its door.
Voters complained about the walk through the mall, and for the November 2024 election some early voters could use the courthouse-annex entrance and an expanded curbside service.
Planning and Zoning and Building and Fire Safety opened in May 2024.
The library annex opened that July with books, computers, and 3D printers, and the regional library's cataloging and book delivery moved in with it.
The Middle Georgia Regional Commission held its first council meeting in the mall that September, after about 30 years on Emery Highway.
Out on former mall parking, the Atrium Health Amphitheater was built for more than 10,000 people.
After a local soft launch on March 12, 2024, it held its first ticketed concert on March 24, 2024: Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top, before about 6,500 people.
Inside, the corridors kept their walkers.
In July 2025 they came in the morning, past several escalators closed to use and big photographs of old Macon in black and white along the walls, while Ole Times kept serving on the second level.
What fills Macon Mall now
Macon Mall is open every day of the week.
Nineteen businesses trade along the corridor that remains, where some old storefronts now hold storage and maintenance rooms.
Among them are Finish Line, Ole Times, Teriyaki Japan, a skate shop, a pet store, a deli, a dental office, and recruiting offices for the Air Force, Navy, Army, and Marines.
Hull still handles leasing for the retail space, and the mall has set a 6 a.m. opening for Black Friday.
County offices, election services, and the library annex work out of former store space, and the Middle Georgia Regional Commission holds its meetings in a mall suite.
Rhythm & Rally is open in the old Belk, and the amphitheater keeps hosting concerts on the old parking lot next door.
The former JCPenney is the part with a plan attached.
In February 2026 the Urban Development Authority signed off on a letter of interest from Gaming and Leisure Properties for a possible casino and hotel on that site.
The company holds a five-year option to purchase the site for $20 million, can extend it five more years for $500,000, and agreed to pay up to $2.5 million to tear down the JCPenney building, close up the wall where it joins the mall, and clear and pave the ground around it.
Casinos are illegal in Georgia, and one could open there only if the state changes its law to license them. The deal remains conditional.
In 1997 the new east wing gave Macon Mall six department stores and more than 1.4 million square feet.
Burlington is the one department store left, in a building the county mostly owns and fills with its own offices and a pickleball hall.
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