The end appears near for a years-long saga concerning a vacant lot on prime Peachtree Road property where a beloved retail strip once operated.
Highwoods Properties and Brand Properties have formed a joint venture to build a 135,000-square-foot office project at 2827 Peachtree Road in Buckhead’s Garden Hills neighborhood, a site just north of Fellini’s Pizza and La Fonda Cantina that’s been fenced-off and vacant for about seven years.
It's the former location of Garden Hills Shopping Center. The charming Peachtree strip once housed the Garden Hills Cinema, Fantasyland Records (for more than three decades), and a multitude of other businesses Atlantans still fondly recall.
Developers plan to break ground on the boutique office venture in the first quarter of this year and deliver it in the third quarter of 2023, as Bisnow first reported. The $79-million project is already 62 percent pre-leased to multiple, unspecified tenants, officials said.
“[The proposal] is attracting healthy interest from additional prospects due to its onsite amenities and several restaurants within a short walk, as well as its boutique design and attractive location in Buckhead,” developers said in a joint announcement last week. No renderings or other plans for the project have been released.
Earlier proposals to redevelop the high-profile site were lightning rods for controversy, after the low-rise strip mall had been rendered uninhabitable.
One night in December 2013, a fire that started in the closed Peachtree Bikes store heavily damaged several businesses along the strip—and the storefronts quickly devolved to eyesore status. An insurance company declared the strip mall a total loss, and all retail spaces north of Fellini’s Pizza were demolished about a year later.
The site has been vacant—save for a tall fence along Peachtree Road and a few trees—ever since.
In ensuing years, neighbors pushed back against Brand Properties’ initial proposal for a mid-rise office tower, claiming it was out of proportion for the context with unsightly architecture. A heavily revised mixed-use proposal didn’t take off, either.
Ted Klinck, president and CEO of Raleigh-based Highwoods, said his company has been working closely with Brand Properties to push the “unique project” with “a wide array of amenities, both within the building and in the surrounding neighborhood” forward at the site. It’s being called 2827 Peachtree for the address.
For posterity's sake, here's a look at the former retail strip as it functioned in summer 2012, and its blank-slate status today:
