Written by 
GwinnettCitizen.com

Duluth - The time is here! One of the City’s most frequently asked questions, when will something be done with Proctor Square? has been answered!
On Tuesday, July 19th at 11:30 a.m., a ceremonial demolition gathering will be held on site at Proctor Square located behind 3116 Buford Highway. The downtown revitalization is now reaching across Buford Highway as Duluth continues its transformation! 

After 43 years of retail service the Proctor Square complex and associated outparcels at the corner of Duluth Highway and Buford Highway are slated for demolition beginning next week.  

The Dunwoody based developer Residential Group, LLC has acquired Proctor Square along with outparcels consisting of Duluth Corners, Georgia Cremation, and FM Appliance.   The eight-acre assemblage will become The Village in Duluth, a 375 multi-family rental unit complex with 11 retail/office store fronts with connected living space above and two corner restaurant sites.  

The development will feature a wrapped parking deck accessible to the public on the first two levels, tree lined boulevard with parallel parking, sidewalks, and public art sites.  The urban style units will be split 50/50 between one room and two bedroom units.  The project is expected to take 24 months to complete. Estimated construction cost is $64,000,000.

Proctor Square was first constructed in the late 60’s on one of the highest points in Duluth.  It was the first true shopping center in Duluth and served the community well as it evolved over time.  

The community is invited to attend and take a ceremonial sledgehammer swing at the property before demolition crews mobilize. To attend the event please turn off Buford Hwy onto Fox Street and enter the Proctor Square site at the gate opening. Parking is available on that end of the site (see map).

Written by 
David Allison
Atlanta Business Chronicle

A new $64 million redevelopment of downtown Duluth, Ga., has begun with the demolition of an old grocery store.
The 43-year-old Proctor Square shopping center will become an 8-acre redevelopment with a 375-unit apartment complex and 11 retail and office store fronts, the Gwinnett Daily Post reported. Read the story and check out a rendering here.The project is expected to take two years to finish.

Atlanta Business Chronicle reported in March about another project in Duluth. Fabric Developers and Vantage Realty Partners broke ground on the redevelopment of seven historic downtown Duluth buildings, making room for up to seven new restaurants. The $7 million project could open its first restaurants by January.
The roughly 40,000-square-foot project, called The Block at Parson’s Alley, is drawing inspiration from Decatur, a model of downtown revitalization.

Keith Farmer
Gwinnett Daily Post

Rita Bowens remembers the excitement of the arrival of Winn-Dixie more than three decades ago because as a Duluth native, it meant she and her family no longer had to drive to Doraville or beyond for shopping.
Her mother loved Parsons, the original general store shopping destination in Duluth that “had everything.”
But Bowens, 61, admitted she was a bit melancholy last week as she stood at the corner of Buford Highway and Duluth Highway and watched heavy excavator construction equipment demolish the vacant building at Proctor Square.
“It is part of my history, my parents are no longer living so representing them and knowing that for them to be able to see the change,” Bowens said. “I see the change for them. … I think it’s a good change for the city because change is everywhere. You can’t stay stagnant.”
Born and raised in Duluth, Bowens remembers the Proctor Square heyday in the 1970s and ’80s and when Gwinnett Place Mall opened and pulled customers from the Winn-Dixie, a five and dime store called Elmore’s and Western Auto.
While the property had stores as recently as a few years ago, questions about the property have buzzed around the city for the last decade, and were one of the first things asked of Mayor Nancy Harris when she began to campaign 10 years ago.
Once home to the Rexall Grill before it moved across the street, Proctor Square had 43 years of retail service before a developer from Dunwoody, Residential Group, acquired Proctor Square along with Duluth Corners, Georgia Cremation, and FM Appliance.
The expected $64 million project across eight acres will become a 375 unit rental complex with 11 retail and office store fronts with connected living space above and two corner restaurant sites. The development will feature a wrapped parking deck accessible to the public on the first two levels, tree-lined boulevard with parallel parking, sidewalks and public art sites.
It’s expected to take two years to finish.
“The whole design of the building is kind of an early industrial design,” developer Kurt Alexander said. “It kind of ties back into the railroad, early city of Duluth, and if you look at a lot of the architecture, signage, buildings in place, we’re pulling off of those ideas and bringing it into our project. It is a new property, but it does reach back to the history of Duluth and what’s existing now.”
He added that it’s an urban project in a suburban location that offers urban amenities with restaurants and outdoor space.
As she spoke to a gathered crowd in the parking lot, Harris said she expects this to be a catalyst for further development. The brick, wrought iron and public art is also designed to mix old and new, like the remade downtown area that has a late 1800 design.

“Yes, we’re getting rid of something really old, but it had no use,” said Harris, a former Winn-Dixie cashier. “… We feel like by doing this, that place is going to get better, and that place is going to get better, and the place down the road is going to get better. We just feel like it’s really going to be a trigger for economic growth on Buford Highway.”
Councilman Billy Jones remembers the property as a young boy after it first constructed in the late 1960s on one of the highest points in Duluth. It was the first true shopping center outside of Parsons.
When Jones was a young teenager, he worked at Western Auto, and that helped him buy his first car at the bottom of the hill, a 1973 Chevrolet Nova.
“I remember working in this store looking out the window going, ‘I’m going to buy that car one day,’” Jones said. “It sat there a long time — it seemed like it took me a year to get my down payment.”
Jones’ parents had a television sales and service business and a laundromat at one end of the property, and between his job and after-school time with his father, Jones said he “hung out here a lot.”
Jones’ grandmother lived just behind the property, and because of his family ties, he said history is very important and recalled a one-time city motto: having pride in old and new.
“On the flip side, you’ve got to move ahead with some things,” he said. “There’s got to be a mix. … Some things have to come down for advancing, but there’s a mix, a fine balance.”

Written by 
Tyler Estep
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

​Work on a $64 million mixed-use project in the heart of downtown Duluth — a development complete with hundreds of apartments, a pair of restaurant spaces and nearly a dozen other storefronts — will begin next week, city officials announced Friday.
Proctor Square, an aging retail center, will be demolished to make room.
The project from Dunwoody-based developer Residential Group, LLC, dubbed "The Village in Duluth," will go up on eight acres centered at 3116 Buford Highway, on the southwest corner of that road's intersection with Duluth Highway. It will feature "a 375 multi-family rental unit complex with 11 retail/office store fronts with connected living space and two corner restaurant sites," Duluth spokeswoman Amanda Leiba said in a news release. 

The aging Proctor Square retail center will be demolished to make room for The Village in Duluth, a $64 million mixed-use project. (Credit: City of Duluth)It will also include a parking deck, "tree-lined boulevard" and public art sites. 
Construction is expected to take two years, but work will begin Tuesday — when demolition begins on the 1960s-era Proctor Square, which officials called the "first true shopping center in Duluth." Developers have also acquired three neighboring outparcels. 
The project's start is just the latest step in a flurry of big-time development around downtown Duluth. 
Down the street from the Proctor Square project, work is well underway on "The Block at Parson's Alley," a 30,000-square-foot restaurant and retail district surrounding the city's Village Green. Dreamland Bar-B-Que has already opened on the site near Lawrenceville and Main streets, as has O4W Pizza.
On the western side of Duluth Highway and Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, a 31-acre development known as Sugarloaf Marketplace will include 330 luxury apartments and 75,000 square feet of retail. A Sprouts Farmers Market opened on the site in May.
Homesouth Communities is working on a 36-townhome development on the back side of downtown, too.