Gayle Guynup has put Gateway Shopping Center up for sale, something she had first thought of doing 20 years ago when she made her first visit to Columbus from her home in northern California to manage her late father’s business holdings.
The 210,875 square-foot property, located at 221 Alabama St., has been listed by Meridian Storage Group and Parasail for $9 million.
Over the years, it has been home to several stores, with current name brands such as Food Giant, Walgreens, Hibbett Sports, Dollar Tree and Roses Express.
Gateway Shopping Center features 22 total rentable spaces with 160,925 rentable square feet. The storage facility next to the shopping center consists of 48 climate-controlled units and 305 non-climate units for a total of 353 units, according to the property description on Crexi, a commercial real estate listing website.
The listing also states the new owner will have the power to change the nature of the leases for any spaces at the shopping center and storage units.
“There are multiple ways that a new investor can add value to the shopping center by either filling the vacant spaces with more tenants or by converting some of the square footage into additional climate-controlled units for the storage business,” the listing reads. “A new owner may also desire to negotiate current leases to convert them into net leases rather than what they currently are as gross leases.”
The brokers in charge of the sale are commercial real estate firms Meridian Storage and Parasell, based out of Florida and California.
A familiar name
Guynup, a judge and attorney from Santa Rosa, California, did not return calls for comment by press time.
Meridian Storage agent Patrick Kidder told The Dispatch Guynup decided to sell off the shopping center to consolidate her assets closer to home in California.
That was part of Guynup’s initial thought 20 years ago.
Guynup’s father, a northern California logger and rancher, bought Gateway in the early 1980s. When he passed away in 2003, Guynup came to Columbus to managed father’s business local affairs.
“When I came to Columbus to take over managing Gateway, I found that I really, really liked the South,” she said in the 2014 interview with The Dispatch. “So, instead of selling it or trading it for something closer to home, I made the decision to stay and see if I could improve our holdings and invest in the area.”
In doing so, Guynup instead became one of the leaders in historic preservation in the city. In 2007, she purchased the old Oddfellows Building on Main Street. She has since purchased other historic properties, including the Alford’s Drug Store building, the Parker Furniture building and the old Columbus train depot.
Leigh Mall before Leigh Mall
While Gateway doesn’t enjoy the same status as an historic structure like her other Columbus properties, it does occupy an important place in the city’s history.
Opening on Sept. 15, 1965, the shopping center was Leigh Mall before there was a Leigh Mall, a point of pride for Columbus residents — particularly for East Columbus — and the city’s largest retail outlet.
“It wasn’t just the biggest strip mall/shopping center. It was the only one,” said longtime Columbus resident and businessman Jimmy Graham. “The big store there was Woolco, and that was one of the biggest names in retail back in those days. It meant a lot to folks. It was a big deal.”
Pat Adair, with the Lowndes County Tax Collector’s Office, said he vividly recalls the opening of Gateway.
“I was just a kid then, and I remember around Christmas the year it opened riding my bike to my grandmother’s house down Alabama Street,” he said. “It was just a two-lane road then and the traffic was backed up like you wouldn’t believe in both directions. It looked like the whole town was trying to get to Gateway. It was crazy.”
Gateway is no longer the retail giant it was in those days, but Kidder said it still has great potential.
“We see tons of upside on this transaction for a new buyer to lease vacant units at the shopping center and manage revenue at the storage facility,” Kidder said. “It’s even priced below replacement cost at $9 million. So we think that there are pretty big advantages here.”
Kidder also said there has been “considerable interest” and that several out-of-state and local parties are looking into the property but would not disclose any of them.
“They’re interested in buying in smaller cities or smaller markets than they would typically because they feel like they can have a larger relative presence,” he said. “They can be the bigger fish in the smaller pond.”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
