By Sam Prickett
Late last year, Colliers International and Arlington Properties conducted a series of listening sessions around Homewood about the future of the Brookwood Village Mall. The two companies had just signed a contract to redevelop the flagging mall but wanted to get feedback from the community before moving forward.
Colliers and Arlington already had some idea of what they wanted to do with the property, of course, reimagining Brookwood Village as a multi-use development including retail, restaurants, high-end apartments, office spaces, a luxury hotel and a conference center.
Shopping malls have been on the decline for years – Brookwood Village is almost half-empty – and a nationwide pandemic didn’t help things.
“I think COVID has accelerated what’s happening nationwide to malls, and I think it’s maybe pushed the timeline for this project maybe sooner than it otherwise would have been,” said Mark Stuermann, executive vice president of Arlington Properties’ development division. “But our vision for it hasn’t really changed.”
That vision is to do away with most of the traditional mall structure and replace it with something that feels more like a downtown promenade. Stuermann said he hopes the finished development will feel like a three- or four-block stretch of Greenville, South Carolina, “a walkable, mixed-use place where people live, work and interact,” he said.
Though most of the current mall will be demolished, the parking decks will remain intact underneath new residential structures. There’s a large, open-air event plaza planned for the center of the development, with other, smaller green spaces dotted throughout the property.
“We picture it being like a living, breathing place … . That activity, that liveliness, will draw people in and make it really feel like the destination it needs to be. We picture having a brewpub, live music, farmer’s markets,” Stuermann said. “In the winter, I’d like to have a temporary ice skating rink. We’d love for it to be as active of a place as you could think of.”
That plan largely lined up with what the community wanted, Stuermann said.
“People are really passionate about more open space and parks, and we have some of that contemplated in our plan.”
Organizations representing Shades Creek and Jemison Park, both of which neighbor the mall, also reached out.
“There are a lot of stakeholders in our community that have a vision for what Shades Creek can be,” Stuermann said. “If you think about Shades Creek, in front of Brookwood is the only place where it’s not a natural creek. If you go past Highway 280 to Jemison Park, it’s a meandering creek. And once you get past Target (on the other side of Brookwood Mall) it takes on that character too. I don’t know all that we can do, but I do know it can be improved, and I think there are a lot of people in the community (who) have a passion for it.”
Stuermann said he hopes to have a rezoning plan submitted to the city of Homewood by early next month. Once that’s approved and construction begins, the project will take between 18 months and two years to complete.
Construction will displace some of the current tenants, though Stuermann said he hopes they’ll be able to return once the redevelopment is finished.
“There’s certainly a period of time where it will be under construction and there’s not really going to be any space to occupy,” he said. “The retail parcels along Brookwood Village Lane, those will remain, and we’d love for those businesses to stay open, but there will be a lot of construction and traffic.”
Connections to the Past
Stuermann said the community listening sessions highlighted to him how important the Brookwood mall is to people in Homewood and the surrounding areas.
“I would say that people are passionate about Brookwood,” he said. “I heard so many great stories from people about their experiences growing up there, going there.
“We got one email from a lady who said she truly grew up at Brookwood. Her father was the first manager of the property, and so she spent a bunch of time in his office at the mall, which is really neat. … I’ve even gotten funny stories about how there was an Applebee’s inside the mall, and if you could get seating in the atrium outside the restaurant, that was the thing to do.”
Though plans are now moving forward, developers still welcome community feedback at brookwoodvillagevision.com.
“We want this to be a place that the community supports and wants to be there,” Stuermann said. “We’re open for feedback.”
