Did metro Atlanta just witness its first food hall failure?

At top left is the approximate Dunwoody construction site where a food hall concept was planned; at right is Interstate 285. | Google Maps

Developers pull the plug on a mini Krog Street Market just beyond the Perimeter because tenants wouldn’t bite

Seven years ago, when Paces Properties pulled the cloak off plans for a concept chockfull of food stalls and restaurants under the same roof, what’s come to be known as Krog Street Market seemed both foreign and revolutionary.

The project’s packed-to-the-gills success, like that of its titanic sibling down the Beltline, Ponce City Market, has helped spur similar concepts from West Midtown to Cobb County’s Marietta Square Market and Forsyth County’s Halcyon.

One commonality in this flurry of new metro Atlanta food halls is that each concrete idea with financing and government support has seemed to take flight. Until now.

A few blocks beyond Interstate 285, just east of Perimeter Mall, a proposed food hall has been in the works for the developing Dunwoody Green site in the Georgetown area. It would have been about one-fifth the size of Krog Street Market, fronting lovely green space as the final piece of a broader city-owned venture called Project Renaissance.

But according to Reporter Newspapers, developers the city has partnered with, Crim & Associates and Ed Hall of Capital Properties Group, are squashing plans for the 20,000-square-foot food hall because they couldn’t ink tenants.

Dunwoody leaders have held out hope the larger project, with its walking trails and park, would beckon the chef-driven restaurants their denizens have been pining for, creating a sort of foodie hub among nature, as the newspaper relays.

Plenty of unique restaurants just up the road are thriving; but the Achilles’ heel for the Project Renaissance parcel is that it’s somewhat tucked-away, leading to drive-by traffic visibility and counts that one official described as “terrible.”

The city has been trying to woo restaurants for more than a year, since before the food-hall concept arose—and crumbled. They’ve amicably severed ties with the developers.

Per the newspaper’s account, Dunwoody officials sound optimistic the site is still viable for something commercial (no apartments or banks!, as one leader promised). That could include a slimmed-down version of the restaurant hub, with just one eatery or two.

Elsewhere on the metro’s north side, Halcyon made its public debut with eight open businesses—including the Krog-esque “Market Hall”—earlier this week, as Forsyth County News relays.

Wakefield Beasley and Associates; Halcyon