Sugarloaf Mills has outlasted its own concept. It opened as an entertainment-driven shopping destination with Georgia cultural annexes and an action-sports skatepark. Medieval Times later added a castle-themed dinner theater. The concept faded. The mall stayed.
It opened in Lawrenceville, Georgia, in 2001 with around 200 retailers and enough corridor to walk a full oval in 20 minutes. More than two decades later, most of its original identity is gone. A high school now operates inside the building.
The Korean Festival in Atlanta held events there in 2024 and 2025. Medieval Times still occupies its castle-themed space on one end of the property. The Georgia Music Hall of Fame annex that defined the opening years does not.
What keeps a place together after its founding idea disappears is a different question from what built it. The answer at Sugarloaf Mills is that the building proved more flexible than its concept.
Opening Day at Discover Mills Brought 70,000 Shoppers to Lawrenceville
More than 70,000 people walked through the doors of Discover Mills on November 2, 2001.
The mall on Sugarloaf Parkway had barely existed as steel and concrete a year before.
Now it had a Bass Pro Shops big enough to hold a fishing pond, an ESPN skatepark, and a credit card deal unlike anything the shopping-center industry had tried before.
Opening-day spending topped $4 million. Another $10 million was expected that first weekend.
The Discover Mills Name: A Credit Card Deal That Shaped a Mall's Identity
The building was supposed to be called Sugarloaf Mills.
The Mills Corporation had been planning the project since 1999 under that name, drawn from Sugarloaf Parkway and the broader commercial district growing up along Interstate 85 northeast of Atlanta.
The name changed before a single beam went up.
In February 2000, The Mills Corporation and Discover Financial Services announced a 10-year naming-rights partnership.
The planned Sugarloaf Mills would open as Discover Mills. Discover Card became the preferred payment method.
Cardholders would get special bonuses and retailer offers. The partnership included a Discover storefront inside the mall and co-marketing across the property.
It was described at the time as the first naming-rights agreement of its kind in the U.S. shopping-center industry.
Discover's brand wasn't just on the sign; it was woven into the shopping model itself.
The deal reflected how The Mills Corporation imagined its properties. These were not conventional department-store malls.
They were large, single-floor, racetrack-layout centers mixing manufacturer outlets, off-price chains, category-dominant stores, theme restaurants, and entertainment anchors.
The early development budget was $170 million. Before opening, annual retail sales were projected at $400 million.
Discover's national sponsorship gave the new mall an unusual marketing identity in a fast-growing suburb still filling in around the highway interchange.
Road work slowed the schedule. Construction on Sugarloaf Parkway and Georgia 120 pushed the original opening target back by a year.
By March 2000, 80 percent of the 230-acre site had been cleared. Steel work followed later that year.
The mall finally opened in fall 2001, after The Mills Corporation had opened Opry Mills in Nashville and Arundel Mills outside Baltimore the year before.
Georgia Themes, Bass Pro Shops, and the ESPN Skatepark
The interior design at opening leaned hard on Georgia's identity.
Displays and annexes connected to the Georgia Music Hall of Fame and Georgia Sports Hall of Fame lined sections of the mall, with photos, videos, and memorabilia giving the center a museum-like layer.
The Mills Music Cafe opened as a performance venue, and the opening weekend included live music programming.
The anchor lineup mixed luxury-off-price, value retail, entertainment, and specialty destination stores. Last Call from Neiman Marcus and OFF 5TH Saks Fifth Avenue Outlet brought designer labels at reduced prices.
Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World took a massive footprint and immediately became one of the most durable draws the property would ever have.
Burlington Coat Factory, Ross Dress for Less, Books-A-Million, Sears Outlet, and Off Broadway Shoes covered the value side.
ESPN X Games Skatepark and Jillian's anchored the entertainment end.
The project expected 15 million visitors in its first full year and was expected to create more than 5,000 jobs once fully operational.
For Gwinnett County, already home to Gwinnett Place Mall and near the Mall of Georgia in Buford, Discover Mills added a different kind of draw, something positioned between a traditional enclosed mall and a destination entertainment complex.
Simon Takes Over: The Mills Corporation's Accounting Problems and the 2007 Acquisition
The Mills Corporation, which built Discover Mills, did not survive the decade as an independent company. By 2006, it was under SEC investigation for accounting irregularities and needed a buyer.
Brookfield Asset Management reached a $1.35 billion agreement first, but Simon Property Group and Farallon Capital Management came in higher.
On February 16, 2007, Simon and Farallon agreed to acquire The Mills Corporation for $25.25 per share, valuing the equity at $1.64 billion and the full deal at $7.9 billion, including debt and preferred stock.
The deal closed on April 3, 2007.
Discover Mills moved into the Simon portfolio. Simon later acquired Farallon's stake in 26 Mills assets in a March 2012 transaction valued at $1.5 billion.
KanAm's participation persisted; by the April 2024 refinancing, the property was sponsored 50-50 by Simon Property Group L.P. and Kan Am Group.
The mortgage history has not been smooth. Loans entered special servicing in 2013 and were renegotiated through the end of 2018.
Then, in September 2018, both loans, a $105 million facility and an $18.4 million loan, were transferred back to special servicing because of imminent default concerns ahead of their December 31 maturity date.
Property cash flow was still covering operating costs and monthly debt service; the problem was refinancing risk.
A new $66 million loan was originated on April 24, 2024, at a fixed rate of 8 percent, maturing May 1, 2029. The 2024 appraised value was $215 million.
From Discover Mills to Sugarloaf Mills: The 2012 Name Change
The Discover partnership ran its 10-year course and expired. In September 2012, the mall announced the name change.
In October, Discover Mills became Sugarloaf Mills. New signage, a new website, and new promotional materials.
The name the developers had chosen in 1999 finally appeared on the building.
Some traces of the original deal remain in the site's geography. Two internal roads are still named Cashback Bonus Boulevard and Credit Card Court, named during the Discover era and preserved to the present day.
AMC Discover Mills 18 became AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18.
The property's identity shifted from a nationally-branded novelty to a regional destination, tied to the Sugarloaf district and the Gwinnett County market it had always actually served.
Entertainment Anchors and Anchor Turnover: How the Tenant Mix Evolved
Medieval Times opened at the mall in 2006, adding a large dinner-theater that became one of the property's most distinctive draws.
The castle-themed building, at 87,200 square feet, brought in group tours, school trips, and families looking for something further outside ordinary retail.
Jillian's was replaced when Dave & Buster's opened in November 2009. By 2024, Dave & Buster's occupied 61,160 square feet and ranked among the top tenants by gross rent.
The luxury-off-price end lost ground over time. Neiman Marcus Last Call closed, and its 32,000-square-foot space became the planned site for a Primark opening.
In 2025, a Primark lease of 30,000 to 32,000 square feet was confirmed for Sugarloaf Mills, the chain's metro Atlanta debut.
Saks Fifth Avenue OFF 5TH, the other original luxury-off-price anchor, was placed on a national closure list in January 2026 as Saks Global restructured through bankruptcy.
Closing sales at the Lawrenceville location began January 31, 2026. Steve & Barry's, an early large-format apparel tenant, had been liquidated in early 2009.
The ESPN X Games Skatepark gave way to Black Diamond Skatepark, which itself no longer appears in current mall directories.
The anchor set that emerged: Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World at 122,670 square feet, Medieval Times at 87,200 square feet, Burlington at 79,850 square feet, and AMC Theatres at 74,350 square feet.
Off Broadway Shoes, Ross Dress for Less, and Books-A-Million remained from the original mix. H&M opened in spring 2017. Primark was announced in 2025 and listed as coming soon in 2026.
A School Inside a Mall: Phoenix High School and the Simon Youth Academy
In 2018, Phoenix High School opened a satellite program at Sugarloaf Mills in partnership with the Simon Youth Foundation.
The Simon Youth Academy operates at 5900 Sugarloaf Parkway, Suite 101A, giving Gwinnett County Public Schools an alternative high-school environment inside the mall.
It turned a portion of the enclosed mall into a functioning school building, which is not a use the original 2001 development plan would have anticipated.
The Korean Festival in Atlanta has also used Sugarloaf Mills as its venue, including 2024 and 2025 events.
A Primark opening and a Korean Festival activity were both listed on a 2026 Sugarloaf-area events calendar tied to the mall.
A high school and a major cultural festival are not the tenants The Mills Corporation pitched to Discover Card in 2000, but they are part of why the building stays full.
Sugarloaf Mills in 2026: 180 Stores, Outstanding Lease Rollovers, and an Open Question
As of May 2026, Sugarloaf Mills remains an operating enclosed mall, climate-controlled, one floor, racetrack layout, with more than 180 stores.
Simon markets it as Georgia's largest value shopping, entertainment, and dining destination. The mall occupies 1,178,600 square feet on a 115.5-acre lot with nearly 6,000 parking spaces and a parking deck at Entrance 4.
Current tenants include Altitude Trampoline Park, Cosmic Golf and Play, Mystery Room, Virtual Adrenaline Productions, GE Airsoft, and Toylanta alongside national chains for apparel, shoes, food, and personal services.
The 2024 credit evaluation placed occupancy at 86.6 percent excluding future and temporary tenants, and 99.1 percent including them.
The 2024 net operating income was $19.9 million.
The outstanding question is who stays. Bass Pro Shops, Medieval Times, and Dave & Buster's all have leases expiring in 2026.
Saks OFF 5TH, one of the original luxury anchors, has already confirmed it is closing. If the major entertainment tenants renew, Sugarloaf Mills looks roughly like it does today.
If they don't, the building that replaced a skatepark with a trampoline park and a Neiman Marcus with a Primark will need to find new answers again.
No verified plan exists for demolition or wholesale redevelopment of the site.
The ESPN skatepark is gone, and so is the Georgia Music Hall of Fame annex. The Discover name is gone. The Neiman Marcus Last Call space is now Primark.
But Bass Pro Shops still anchors one end of the building, and Medieval Times still fills its castle on the other side, and on weekend afternoons, the parking lot still fills up, just as it did on the first Friday of November in 2001, when 70,000 people came out to see what The Mills Corporation had built beside the interstate.
