East Atlanta
An Eclectic Oasis Of Cool Culturewords by > Bret Love
Whether it’s New York’s Greenwich Village, San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury or Toronto’s Queen Street, it seems like every major city has a quirky little neighborhood that serves as an enclave for artists, musicians and other bohemian types. Once considered the younger sister of nearby Little 5 Points, East Atlanta has emerged in recent years as the ATL’s hottest hipster haven, attracting an influx of young adults and families drawn to the area’s combination of aff ordability, convenience and eclectic cool.
There was a time, not so long ago, when the area seemed destined for little more than destitution. Aft er middle class black families moved in under the protection of the Fair Housing Act back in the ’60s, opportunistic real estate agents fanned the flames of fear and racial prejudice, resulting in a “white flight” that allowed investors to swoop in and snatch up available houses for a song. Real estate values dipped, and the neighborhood’s appearance and reputation suff ered.
Even as recently as a decade ago, when the opening of a coff ee shop and a restaurant—Sacred Grounds, which is now Joe’s Coff ee (404-521-1122), and Heaping Bowl & Brew, which has been replaced by Blue Frog Cantina (404-658-6108)—signaled the beginning of a new stage in the neighborhood’s evolution, more than 50% of the shops in East Atlanta were boarded up. But as the 1996 Summer Olympics brought an influx of new residents into the metro Atlanta area, savvy investors began buying up East Atlanta’s charming mix of bungalows, ranch-style homes and century-old Victorians, which at the time were listing for well under $100,000.
One of those forward-thinking investors who jumped on the East Atlanta bandwagon early was Avenue Realty’s Candace Fuqua, who started out renovating homes in the area nearly a decade ago and is now one of its leading real estate agents. “the area has changed dramatically in the years that I’ve been working here,” Fuqua says. “Back then, my buyers were true urban pioneers, but now we’re getting families from suburbs like Alpharetta wanting to move to the area. It’s convenient to everything that makes Atlanta great, and it’s all in what feels like an eclectic, small town.”
At the heart of this hip epicenter is East Atlanta Village, a retail development located at the intersection of Glenwood Avenue and Flat Shoals Avenue, where almost all of the area’s shops, boutiques, bars and restaurants are located. “the Village is hip and funky, fun and friendly,” says Fuqua, “with lots of one-of-a-kind boutiques, great music venues, a Soho-style coff ee shop, an old 50’s-type barber shop, a tattoo parlor and a great furniture and accessories store. the Village is really what makes the area attractive. Urban home buyers want to be near little village-type areas where they can take the dog for a walk, have a cup o’ joe, have sushi around the corner, share fajitas and tequila shooters with friends, then be able to able to walk home aft er a night out.”
In addition to the area’s eclectic soul, Fuqua cites its prime location as a major reason so many people are flocking to East Atlanta. “It’s so close to I-20 (the highway that runs East-West through the heart of the city) and downtown Atlanta, close to Little Five Points and the great shopping at the new Edgewood Retail District.
“All the chain stores from the ’burbs are here now,” says Fuqua. For families, the newly renovated Brownwood Park Recreation Center is located in the middle of the neighborhood, while tourist attractions such as Grant Park and Zoo Atlanta are practically right around the corner.
Of course, with such rapid gentrification, and so many old homes being refurbished and new homes being built, property values in East Atlanta are soaring. the average cost of a home in the area rose from $172,512 in 2002 to $197,422 in 2005. “the value of homes in the area has greatly increased in the last few years. I have a lot of buyers using 100% financing,” says Fuqua, “so they put no money into the house, then sell it three years later, making $50,000-$100,000 profit. Sometimes, they’ve had 10%-20% price appreciation per year. Of course, it’s all in how you buy, and when.”