[Ulver]

I believe this is the first Kroger on Moreland Ave., in Atlanta, and one of the very first in the city, for that matter.




The building, located in the East Atlanta neighborhood, still stands today, though in much disrepair.




Some years later, this Kroger opened several miles south, in the newly built Moreland Shopping Center. Kroger is far, left end...




I grew up shopping that store as a child with my mother. IIRC, at the other end of the strip mall was another grocery chain. Maybe a Big Apple, but I can't recall. I know as an adult, after the Kroger was gone, the other store was for a long time a Winn-Dixie. It ultimately became an IGA, and is still in operation.

After I moved from the area, a new Kroger was built across the street from Moreland Shopping center, although I can not recall when. 70's maybe>??? That store was free-standing.

Kroger built once again on Moreland, IIRC around the mid-to-late 90's anchoring a strip near Moreland & Confederate Ave. It still stands...

Lastly, Kroger built on Moreland again, just a half-dozen years or so, along with many others (Target/Best Buy/Barnes & Noble), on the grounds of the old Colonial Bakery property.

Anything others can add, is greatly appreciated...

I have been trying to find a history of Moreland Shopping Center, but have uncovered little. Although it is crime-infested, and withered with age and neglect, it remains a important part of the history of Southeast Atlanta.

[krogerclerk]

The Moreland Shopping Center was on the DeKalb side of Moreland Ave, in unicorporated territory. I'm not sure if the second grocer was Big Apple or not, which likely would have been re-bannered Food Giant during the mid or late 70's. Kroger replaced its store with an early 80's greenhouse store, built on the Fulton County side of Moreland, putting the store within the Atlanta city limits. The current store is once again on the DeKalb side of Moreland. The Winn-Dixie in Moreland Shopping Center soldiered on until at least the mid-90's.

[rich]

Kroger had planned to close the freestanding store, which was poorly run, around 2000-2001 until they ran in to community opposition. Ultimately, they built the new store in the strip on Moreland at the end of Confederate Ave. They probably saw the long-term promise of gentrification, which has been largely concentrated N & W of that location., although the new strip mostly has stores that target people without much money and it has added to the glut of retail (and the vacancies & shabbiness that go with it) along that stretch of Moreland. The Edgewood store further up may already have been planned at that time--that development was very contentious and dragged out from about 2000. The Kroger opened in late '04 or early '05. Most of the land had previously been an Atlanta Natural Gas regional service facility. There were some other businesses on the site including a U-Haul. The original plan for that lifestyle center (probably the 2nd or 3rd of its kind in the Atlanta area when it opened) had called for much more intensive development. As it turned out, the development was probably a little large for the area, as some stores did better than others. The final development also included housing. That development serves already gentrified areas like Inman Park and Candler Park and the store opened as a relatively upscale prototype, but did not get off to a very successful start. The development helped speed up gentrification in the nearby Edgewood and Reynoldstown neighborhoods, though. I used to live about a mile and half E in the Kirkwood neighborhood.

The area near the original Kroger is East Atlanta (DeKalb side) and Ormewood Park (Fulton side). Both underwent a great deal of gentrification in the 90s. Both areas had become predominantly African-American, but had never completely lost their white population, which probably made it easier for gentrifiers to start buying in the area. Not far from there is Grant Park, which retained much more of its white population and became a somewhat more economically and racially diverse area. Grant Park is physically very attractive with mature trees and many Craftsman homes and is one of the more sought after intown neighborhoods; however, Grant Park but lacks shopping and other facilities, so this area is important for it. The main East Atlanta shopping area was to the East of the Kroger, mostly along Flat Shoals Road--Moreland probably provided a better site for parking. That business district is now Atlanta's equivalent of "funky" and has somewhat supplanted Little 5 Points as a venue for music and what passes for counterculture in Atlanta. East Atlanta had a 1930s/40s A&P that became a long running independent and I think now has a different tenant. I would guess that it also had a Colonial at some point. The Moreland Kroger looks like early postwar (the date may be on the building) and I would not be surprised if it replaced an earlier Kroger or Piggly Wiggly store in the main East Atlanta shopping district. Kroger opened its first store in Virginia Highland in 1932--I think it's now a Thai restaurant. They bought the Piggly Wigglys at about the same time. Kroger's pattern from the 30s onward in other cities was to rapidly turnover stores and their late 40s early supers typically were replaced by larger stores by the mid- to late-50s.

The area near Moreland Plaza has become increasingly Hispanic on both sides of Moreland, although gentrification is creeping toward it on the Fulton side. The stores in that plaza reflect the growth of the Hispanic population. Last time I was around there, the plaza was almost fully tenanted, although it could have used a lot of cosmetic work and repaving of the parking lot. Further South is an area of truck stops, waste dumps, etc. which have been barriers to further development.

This general area of Atlanta got a lot of infill and new development shortly after WWII and many people had come to the area from rural South Georgia--many ex-GIs buying homes on GI bill mortgages. Development seems to have stopped in the early 60s, when many of these neighborhoods became mostly African-American. A bit later, huge housing project were built in nearby East Lake (now replaced with mixed income housing) and at the far Southern boundary of Atlanta which stunted development further. It's difficult to get history of this area--people in Kirkwood and surrounding areas S of the railroad, Black & White, did not want to talk about the 60s and I discovered a lot of history by digging deeply on the web.That turned up academic studies and an interesting discoveries like a segregation-era Black community between Edgewood and Kirkwood that has continued to resist gentrification. Inman and Candler Park have some different and more wealthy and diverse histories and are better documented. These more blue collar neighborhoods are less well documented which, of course, makes them more interesting.

[BK31]

I was just down in East Atlanta Village last night and on my way back home I noticed that Kroger/Payless structure while I was waiting at the light at Glenwood and Moreland. Its up for sale right now, looks completely abandoned and is covered in graffiti. The lights flanking the Masonic temple doors were what triggered it for me. I've passed this by probably 20x and never knew it was a Kroger.

Its looking even sadder than its payless shoes iteration on streetview.