As part of ongoing Best of Atlanta 2022 coverage, Urbanize’s second-annual Best Atlanta Neighborhood tournament is kicking off with 16 places vying for the prestige of being called the city’s greatest. (Note: Seeding from 1 to 16 was determined by reader nominations this month, so no pitchforks, please.)
For each Round 1 contest, voting will be open for just 24 hours. Please, let’s keep the tourney fun and positive, as one neighborhood rises above the rest in very public fashion. The eliminations begin now!
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SUMMERHILL (6)
Highest home sale of 2022: $815K for a newly built four-bedroom house on South Avenue
Lowest: $190K fixer-upper, or teardown; a small church building
Median sales price increase year-over-year: 17.9 percent
Like every year for most of the past decade, Summerhill blazed through 2022 as a juggernaut of change on the large-scale development front. The historic neighborhood’s long-sought major grocery option, a big-box Publix that’s claiming former Turner Field parking lots, began taking shape, as Georgia State University’s eye-catching Convocation Center (and basketball arena/concert venue) debuted. Elsewhere, Trammell Crow Residential delivered 325 new housing options in the form of Alexan Summerhill, adding to more than a thousand new units in the neighborhood since the Braves departed. On a boutique scale, a stylish 10-townhome project is just getting underway now on happening Georgia Avenue, claiming an empty lot.
Summerhill’s valiant Best Atlanta Neighborhood tourney performance in 2021 lasted all the way until The Finals, when it met the tight-knit, motivated buzzsaw that is reigning champion Mozley Park. Will Summerhill exact revenge and reign supreme in 2022? If that’s going to happen, it has to start now.
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PONCEY-HIGHLAND (11)
Photography by John Michael Sullivan; via Compass
Highest home sale of 2022: $1.5M, a renovated, five-bedroom Tudor Revival home
Lowest: $245K, a one-bedroom, 645-square-foot condo
Median sales price increase year-over-year: 45.3 percent
Talk about a coveted neighborhood (and restricted supply)!
Throughout the past year, median home and condo sale prices in the tony intown nabe that is Ponce-Highland have ballooned by more than 45 percent, pushing median sales prices ever closer to the $600,000 mark, according to Redfin data. That could be tough news for first-time homebuyers, but it’s probably sweet music to longtime owners who recall when Clermont Lounge and San Francisco Coffee were more of a marquee draw for the area than Ponce City Market. This year, Poncey-Highland has seen the Freedom Townhomes project finally pop up, renovations begin at the empty Highland Inn, and construction on what promises to be a show-stopping art installation on a prominent corner. Oh, and celebrated seafood eatery Fishmonger has been anointed by Esquire magazine one of America's best new restaurants.
As nominator “SC” put it, “I’ve gotta say Poncey-Highland. It’s a nice mix of the more residential, quiet Virginia-Highland with the youthful, almost cosmopolitan, BeltLine-laced PCM area.” Poncey-Highland is making its Best Atlanta Neighborhood tournament debut in 2022, though it racked up several strong showings in the tourney’s predecessor on some other website.
Now, please cast a vote below!
(POLLING HAS CLOSED AFTER 24 HOURS. Congrats to Poncey-Highland for the 2022 tournament's first upset.)
