Simon, Cousins, North American Ready to Roll on $200M Mall

McDONOUGH, GA-After five years of talks and planning, Simon Property Group of Indianapolis, North American Properties of Cincinnati, and Cousins Properties Inc. of Atlanta plan to break ground by first quarter 2005 on the first phase of South Point, a $200-million, 1.5-million-sf open-air shopping center in Henry County, 35 miles south of Downtown Atlanta.

The total project will comprise one million sf of retail and restaurant space, 500,000 sf of office and 1,000 apartments or townhomes. The estimated hard construction cost of the venture is $133 per sf, based on the developers’ announced $200-million figure.

The announcement by the three national developers follows informal plans on the project reported by GlobeSt.com in May 2003. At that time, the developers decided to scrap plans to build separate one-million-sf shopping centers in Henry County and pool their resources for one major retail enterprise. The 2000 Census lists Henry County as the sixth-fastest growing county in the US.