The South Fulton Chamber of Commerce plans to use a $60,000 planning grant from the Livable Centers Initiative to hire a marketing/planning consultant to provide ideas for increasing foot traffic to the once-glittering retail site, located five minutes north of Atlanta Hartsfield Int'l. Airport.

The chamber sees the General Growth Properties-managed mall being redeveloped and repositioned as a community shopping center rather than as a regional mall, the likes of which would compete with the 1.2-million-sf Arbor Place Mall in Douglas County and the 1.9-million-sf Mall of Georgia in North Fulton County.

Developed by Toronto-based Cadillac Fairview and the late Scott Hudgens of Atlanta, Shannon Mall was supposed to have been a major retail center for south metro Atlanta residents when the property opened in fall 1980. At a development cost of $15 million, the center was constructed for about $20 per sf, about five times less than current hard construction costs for comparable retail sites, construction industry estimators tell GlobeSt.com.