Business owners at Northlake Mall were left reeling on Thursday after receiving a notice that they had 30 days to vacate the property.
Tony Cade, owner of Challenges Games and Comics, told Rough Draft that all the businesses in the interior of the mall – stores like Tagz Sportz Box, Evolve Clothiers, and Happy Land – received the same notice. The mall’s general manager told Cade that the evictions were due to the sale of the property but did not confirm to whom the mall had been sold. According to anonymous sources who spoke to Tomorrow’s News Today, the buyer was Emory Healthcare.
The impacted business owners were told a meeting with the mall’s general manager, Adam Kamlet, was scheduled for the morning of June 3, but Cade said Kamlet never showed up and said he would meet with tenants individually.
While the eviction notice didn’t violate the business owners’ leases, which were short term with 30-day eviction clauses, Cade says he and other tenants were blindsided by the notices. Challenges used to operate out of the North DeKalb Mall and was evicted after the mall was sold, but Case said he knew the owners were selling the property and was given 90 days to vacate.
“Everybody’s shocked,” he said. “We had no clue that anything was going on. We now suspect that mall management knew, but they didn’t let us know anything that was going on… The last thing most of us knew about is that they were talking about tearing down the [former] JCPenney location and building two apartment complexes on the land. We heard nothing about the mall being up for potential sale.”
Related story: Developers seeks council input on future of Northlake Mall
Tucker Mayor Anne Lerner said in a statement that the city was not notified about the evictions after the sale, and the city’s economic development team has reached out to mall management and its leasing team to offer support to the evicted businesses.
Challenges is not only a place where people shop for comic books. The store is a beloved community space with events like card game tournaments, board game nights, and other social activities. Challenges was named the Tucker Business of the Month in May for its role as a “vital community resource.”
Cade has received a lot of support from his customers, who he said are upset about the closure. One customer, Arianne Geisz, set up a GoFundMe for the business, calling it a “second home.” The page has raised more than $3,000.
While he awaits more information from mall management, Cade is looking for a new location for Challenges but is struggling to find a space that’s both big enough to accommodate retail and community events (at least 4,000 square feet) and small enough to be affordable.
He hopes to stay with his customer base in DeKalb County and says the best way to support the business is the share any information about buildings that could work as a new Challenges location.
Rough Draft is reaching out to other tenants in the mall, and will update the story as more information is known.
