For most of two decades, the answer to what was going in at North DeKalb Mall was Costco.
Not a rumor. A real application, a real developer, a real plan called Decatur Landing. Then in December 2018 an attorney for Sterling Organization, which owned the mall, said the plan was dead. The rezoning was withdrawn. The site went back to being a mall nobody went to, and then, in October 2020, not a mall at all.
Drive that stretch of Lawrenceville Highway in September 2026 and there are buildings.
What is actually standing on the 78 acres
The Publix building is fully up. Not framed, not underway. Standing.
Marshalls and the AMC Theater were never knocked down, and both are still operating, which is why the site never fully went dark. Refuge Coffee opened on the property in July at 3861 North Druid Hills Road.
And Novel Lulah Hills, the first residential piece, is taking shape at the end of a new street called Lulah Avenue. Six stories, 303 apartments over ground-floor retail that includes Anthropologie. Crescent Communities started it in December, with NTT Urban Development, a Japan-based firm, as a capital partner making its Atlanta debut on the building.
All of that sits inside a master plan from developer Edens for 2.5 million square feet, including 320,000 square feet of retail, restaurants and entertainment, plus 2 acres of public greenspace with connections toward Clyde Shepherd Nature Preserve and Emory.
Why this changes something in your week
The grocery store is the part that touches the most people.
Publix will anchor the project with a 50,000-square-foot store big enough for a drive-thru pharmacy, and a Publix spokesperson said in May 2025 that it was expected to open in the first quarter of 2027. The grocer is relocating from a nearby location.
Here is the wrinkle. There is already a Publix at Shamrock Plaza on North Druid Hills Road, directly across the street, and Edens could not comment on whether that is the store making the move. So the realistic outcome for anyone who shops there is a new address for the same grocery trip, not a second option on the corner.
Worth knowing before you plan your 2027 errands around it.
The public money, and the two things worth watching
In November 2023 the Decide DeKalb Development Authority voted unanimously to reimburse Edens for up to $70 million in increased property taxes over 15 years, paid out as pieces of the roughly $843 million project get completed. Decide DeKalb president Dorian DeBarr led that effort, tied to infrastructure improvements.
As the deal was described in June 2024, the project was set to deliver 1,700 multifamily units, 100 townhomes and a 150-unit hotel, with 10 percent of residential units reserved as workforce housing at below-market prices. Edens did not request a tax abatement on those properties.
That 10 percent is the first thing I would keep an eye on, because the first 303 apartments are the first real test of it. Recent coverage does not mention the workforce set-aside or the hotel either way.
The second is the Publix date. First quarter 2027 is on the record, and a grocery store opening is the rare development promise a neighbor can verify by driving past.
My Take
After years of plans that never made it past county paperwork, Lulah Hills deserves credit for getting into the ground. The next level of accountability is not questioning whether it will be built. It is tracking what gets built alongside the stores and apartments. The $70 million public arrangement was presented with workforce housing, a hotel, thousands of jobs and infrastructure that would reconnect the property to surrounding neighborhoods. Some of those pieces are moving. Others need updated terms. Before Novel begins leasing, the development team and Decide DeKalb should publish how the 10 percent housing commitment works, which buildings will contain those homes and what prospective renters will need to earn to qualify. That information would turn “workforce housing” from a line in a public announcement into something a DeKalb County household can actually use.
If you shop the Publix at Shamrock Plaza, would moving it across the street into Lulah Hills make your grocery run better or worse?
