Alpharetta Approves NHL Arena Plan for North Point Mall

The Alpharetta City Council voted 4-3 to rezone nearly 100 acres, including North Point Mall, to allow a 20,000-seat hockey arena, 1,385 apartment units, a 4,000-seat music hall and performing arts center, 650 hotel rooms, a 35,000-square-foot conference center, 750,000 square feet of office, 565,000 square feet of retail and 20 acres of public parks, plazas and multi-use trails. Bisnow reporter Jarred Schenke reported the vote on August 26, 2026.

The plan is to tear down the mall and replace it with a massive mixed-use development anchored by a professional hockey arena.

The National Hockey League has not announced any planned expansion team, and it has not said whether Atlanta would be a target city. The project is contingent on landing an NHL team.

Under the master development plan the city approved, the portion of the rezoning that permits for-rent housing would be revoked if developers fail to break ground on construction or the NHL does not approve a new hockey team at the project by August 24, 2031.

Local opposition to rental apartments is why a previous redevelopment plan for the mall was rejected, and it contributed to the split vote.

New York Life Insurance Co. owns the mall. The redevelopment is being spearheaded by Jamestown, the developer behind Ponce City Market, and Machete Group. Neither firm has a financial stake in the property.

Machete Group Managing Partner David Carlock said the partners are pushing forward on honing the design and plans and continuing discussions with potential ownership groups that could pay the billions required to bring an expansion NHL team to Atlanta. He said there is no timetable set.

"We're in discussions with a handful of folks who have expressed interest and have the means to be part of the group," Carlock told Bisnow. "We're optimistic. Getting through the vote on Monday has now put us in place" to prioritize those efforts, he added.

Carlock declined to disclose a total cost for the mixed-use development, but said the arena alone could cost upward of $1.5 billion.

Jamestown Chief Investment Officer Tim Perry said in a statement that the approval "positions North Point to become a regional, year-round destination for professional sports, entertainment, and mixed-use experiences, while bringing substantial investment, economic impact, and community benefit."

The North Point project is one of two competing local visions for an NHL-based destination. Forsyth County approved a plan in June led by car dealership owner Vernon Krause for a $3 billion mixed-use project with an 18,500-seat, NHL-ready stadium in the southern portion of the county.

Carlock said North Point is better positioned to host the arena because it is closer to Atlanta's core, sits in an area that already has a sizable corporate presence and more population density, and has more ingress and egress points plus two existing parking decks that could save the developers around $100 million in costs.

"The fact that we're that much closer to more people, more household income and more of a corporate base, that will drive the success," Carlock said, adding that he has a lot of respect for Krause and wishes him the best.

Both projects are vying for a chance at a team. Atlanta has hosted two previous NHL teams, the Flames and the Thrashers, and both decamped to other cities. The league has not said it plans to expand back to Georgia.

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly told The Hockey News that the league was in "serious discussions" with an ownership group that would bring an NHL team to Houston or Austin.

Prominent NHL player agent Allan Walsh said in a post on X: "NHL expansion is coming. Houston and Atlanta." NHL insider Elliotte Friedman said on a podcast that the league will announce two expansion teams before its TV deal expires in two years, pegging Houston and Atlanta as the favorites.

Perry told the Atlanta Business Chronicle that a new owner would likely have to pay a roughly $2 billion expansion fee to become the league's 33rd or 34th team.

North Point Mall sits on the east side of Georgia 400. Homart Development Co., a subsidiary of Sears, developed the property in 1993, and it rapidly became the retail juggernaut of affluent Alpharetta and North Fulton County. Shopping in the county then shifted to the luxury, walkable mixed-use Avalon project on the west side of Georgia 400, and the pandemic hit.

Rather than pay off the $202 million loan tied to North Point Mall in 2021, Brookfield Property Partners handed the property to its lender, New York Life, in a deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure transaction. The insurance giant has been working on a redevelopment vision for the 1.3 million-square-foot mall since.

Carlock said that, for now, all of the developers' eggs are in the NHL's basket: "There is no specific Plan B. It's a terrific site, and no matter what, North Point Mall should be redeveloped. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

This is an entitlement story, not a construction story. The vote clears the zoning path for a massive mixed-use project, but nothing gets built until the NHL decides on expansion, and part of the rezoning has a 2031 sunset tied to that decision.

For the Atlanta housing market, the signal is regional and long-term, not immediate: an arena, 1,385 apartments, a music hall, hotels and offices on the GA 400 corridor would reshape demand in North Fulton over a long timeline if the team question resolves. Watch for the league's decision before planning around it.

As reported by Jarred Schenke of Bisnow, August 26, 2026, with quotes from Machete Group Managing Partner David Carlock and Jamestown Chief Investment Officer Tim Perry, and reporting cited from The Hockey News, Allan Walsh's post on X, Elliotte Friedman's podcast and the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Figures, dates and quotes are as stated in the report, not estimates.