First we have the story of the Home Deport corporation. The company was founded in the Atlanta area. The first store was at the intersection of Memorial Drive and I-285 in the Decatur GA area.
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Today the original Home Depot building is the main offices of the "Dekalb County Georgia Tax Commissioners Office". The "Home Depot" signage has been removed and today there is a big "Claudi G Lawson, Dekalb County Tax Commissioner" sign plastered on the front of the building.
The original building GENERATED revenues and tax inflows to Dekalb County via the exchange of goods. They also produced jobs. Today the same building is a GOVERNMENT building and they take money from the masses of people within for use in government operatitions. This building has government workers.
Memorial Drive = Cynthia McKinney Parkway
It pays to step back and review the history of this stretch of real estate on the east side of metro Atlanta.
Dekalb County and Memorial Drive 60 years ago (if you listen to various local Civil Rights Leaders) was off limits to Black folks. A Black person walking down Memorial Drive after sundown without a good reason for being there was going to get harassed or arrested by the cops - so said the late civil rights leader Hosea Williams and others that I have heard over time. Of course we also know that Memorial Drive leads to Stone Mountain - the place where the KKK was recristened after several years of dormancy.
The strip of Memorial Drive from Avondale Estates to the West down through to the city of Stone Mountain is one long series of store front villages that sold all sorts of things. There were travel agents, golf shops, restaurants, video stores and even tanning salons. As with so many areas that we see today - one strip mall begats another one until there is simply no more room to place any of them. They key difference from today it that there was a very low vacancy rate for these stores at the time that I moved to the region - in the early 1990's.
In this context Dekalb County and Memorial Drive served as the ideal place for Home Depot to errect its first store. They went on to become a multi-billion dollar global company all stemming from the initial efforts by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank. At that time Dekalb was experiencing a building boom. There were new houses under contruction at the time. In addition to the Whites that had been exiting the City of Atlanta, a new flow of African-Americans were heading to the suburbs from the city as well. Home Depot was properly positioned to sell the furnishings necessary for these houses.
I would place the tipping point for Memorial Drive around the year 1995 or so. As Whites began to depart South Dekalb and the western portions of the county - the stores that were most oriented to them began to close on Memorial Drive as well. This would be the small travel agencies, tanning salons, hair salons specialty restuarants and golf stores. This is not an indictment upon the new residents in any way. In addition to the new consumer tastes for the people moving in - there will aways be an inclination for a proprieter to follow his clientele when they move.
Even Greg Baranco, the much hearlded African-American dealership that was orinally localed at Covington Highway and 285 moved further to the east to the Lawerenceville Area. This was a matter of "move or allow someone else to take over the newly developing and expanded sales teritory".
MEMORIAL DRIVE OF TODAY
Memorial Drive has made a partial recovery as of today. Plain and simple - there are too many store fronts on the strip to handle the present level of demands in the consumer market. Thus what had appeared to be a lot of abanonded stores was more accurately called - an inventory of stores that were aligned with a by-gone era.
There are ethinic food restaurants and grocery stores on the strip. Pawnshops, check chasing and title loan joints are also present. The Kroger at one end of the strip (Belvedere Plaza) got remodeled and the old Avondale Mall got torn down and replaced by a Wal-Mart. A few of the big box drug stores have opened and then closed down. All of the new car dealerships have closed down on the entire stretch of the road.
Memorial Drive is holding its own.
3 comments:
Sure it makes sense that certain specialty stores (e.g., golf) on Memorial would have closed, or followed their clientele.
But why can't the area support chain restaurants? There is a nice Chic-Fil-A, and a little further down there is a Taco Bell that has operated in the same location for over twenty years. Across the street from there is a Subway next to the Publix store.
But think about the restaurants that closed since the early 90s: McDonald's, Red Lobster, Applebees, Burger King, Empress of China, Sun Dynasty, Hickory House, Baskin Robins, Blimpie, Steak and Ale, Pizza Hut, Chilis, Folks, and the list goes on and on. You can't imagine that these establishments would be under-patronized. Is it crime? Is it racism on the part of franchise owners? I'm at a loss.
Memorial Drive is a shell of its former self, especially where the K-Mart (and Hickory House) used to be, near Stone Mountain High School.
I think it is great that recent immigrants have shown the entrepreneurial drive to open restaurants. When feeling adventurous, I try them. But the lack of willingness of franchisees of favorite American chain restaurants speaks to a lack of faith on the part of many in the Memorial Drive area.
I used to live near Memorial Dr. back when it was 2 lanes and you could go to a restaurant without the fear of getting robbed or sicken by the poor quality of food and service. I have seen the changes that brought the area down. It is the type of people that are now residing there. When the crime increased the business got tired and left along with the hard working people that used to support the area. DeKalb County has gone downhill and with the current administration and people who allow the corruption it is not going to get better. It has become a cess pool and I do not think it could ever be brought back to its former status. I don't care how much money you throw at the problem it will never be like it was where it was a plesant place to go.
Can anyone tell me the stores that have occupied the original Home Depot building?
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