HOME & REAL ESTATE
Trends � Development � City Living
Rediscovering Summerhill Southside community is undergoing a dramatic renaissance after decades of being ignored
Pets and their people lineup out Little Tart Bakeshop. (Photo by Isadora Pennington)
By Collin Kelley
I
ntown’s first story about the redevelopment of Summerhill appeared on our website in September 2017 after the project got nearly $5 million in tax incentives from the city. Longtime residents of the neighborhood were – not surprisingly – wary of the intentions of development firm Carter and Georgia State University, which had just purchased the stadium formerly known as Turner Field for its nascent football team. Shortly thereafter, a series of dramatic renderings of the redeveloped Summerhill appeared and there was more cause for concern. Glass office towers, apartment buildings, student housing, retail shops, and a streetcar running down Hank Aaron Drive predicted a future that would render the historic neighborhood unrecognizable. Of course, what are now called the “legacy residents” of Summerhill had been
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here before. Back in the early 1990s, the announcement that Atlanta would host the 1996 Summer Olympics promised a boon for Summerhill, but after the games left town, all the neighborhood had to show for it was the Olympic Stadium, which would become home to the Atlanta Braves for two decades before the team decamped to Cobb County. Another sporting ground – the circular Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium built for the Braves and demolished after the Olympics – decimated the adjacent Washington-Rawson neighborhood in 1965. The construction of the Downtown Connector a decade earlier had caused a mass exodus from Summerhill and surrounding neighborhoods as wrecking balls and bulldozers cleared what was once a prosperous and lively part of the Southside. Summerhill was home to a thriving Black and Jewish community after the Civil War and well into the early part of the 20th century. As Capitol Avenue became known
The Idnani Family explores the murals of Summerhill and dropped by Hero Donuts for a sweet treat. (Photo by Isadora Pennington)
as the “Fifth Avenue of the South” populated by rich whites, racial segregation split the neighborhood. In 1966, Summerhill made national news after a policeman shot an unarmed black man and four days of rioting followed. The 1970s and ‘80s would see the accelerated decline of the neighborhood. Before the Olympics, only a few thousand residents remained. Since Carter and GSU’s announcement, Summerhill has indeed undergone a renaissance. At the heart of this reversal of fortune – as it has been for nearly a century – is Georgia Avenue. The street was, and is once again, the center of commerce for the neighborhood. From the 1920s and into the ‘50s, Georgia Avenue was full of shops, restaurants, and supermarkets. When it was announced in the spring that Publix would build a 50,000 square foot supermarket on Hank Aaron Drive, it was headline news. The Publix announcement was just the latest development in what is inarguably the
warp speed revitalization of Summerhill. Georgia Avenue and its surrounding streets are bustling with restaurants (see page 32), shops, apartments, townhomes, and single-family homes. A new bus rapid transit line (BRT) will soon connect Summerhill to the Five Points MARTA station, bringing even more visitors. One of the newcomers who has planted roots in Summerhill is Dan Reingold, who works as director of field marketing for Creature Comforts Brewing. A native of Atlanta, Reingold said he was drawn to the community because of its Jewish history and because lifelong friends opened Halfway Crooks Beer and Little Bear restaurant – both located on Georgia Avenue. “Summerhill has a challenging history,” Reingold acknowledged, “but the people here are super strong.” Reingold bought a new townhome At l a n t a I n t o w n Pa p e r. c o m
