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.

But the mall opened during a recession and after a seven-year development delay. Customer support didn't live up to the developers' projections, largely because the residential base in south Fulton at that time didn't keep pace with population growth in other metro Atlanta sectors, retail brokers familiar with the mall's history tell GlobeSt.com.

Instead of flocking to Union City, new residents arrived, instead, in nearby suburban locations such as Newnan and Peachtree City.Although Union City has grown to 15,400 residents from 9,347 in 1990, that growth hasn't been sufficient to sustain the mall's financial health. National retailers came and went. Macy's, Mervyn's, J.C. Penney and Toys R Us all thought they could make it at Shannon Mall before exiting in the 1990s.