The Looking Glass Is Coming to The CTR in 2027

Seventeen years after the bulldozers, 263 homes are under construction on the 74-acre Bowen Homes site, now renamed Ariel Place at Bowen. The first six phases run through April 2031. The school, the grocery store and the retail have no published dates at all.

Thomasville Heights. English Avenue and Vine City. Grove Park and Bankhead. The seven areas on the Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative list now have a nonprofit and a paid executive director. What they do not have is the tax-district money, and that call sits with a school board closing schools.

The corner at the Beltline's zero mile marker held a car wash, then a pub people called their spot, and now four-story townhomes asking $750,000 and $800,000. Ackerman & Co., which owns Lee + White across the street, is selling them. Here is what the price actually tells you about West End.

Three quarters of the Beltline was built on old railbed. The northwest quadrant has none, so this mile gets assembled out of an office park, a bridge over Northside Drive and an interstate underpass. Groundbreaking is Sept. 10. Nothing opens until late fall 2028.

The Broad Street storefront that gave Paul McCartney an album title is a 40-seat restaurant from the couple behind The Plate Sale. Mule Train is built for weekday lunch, which is exactly the bet South Downtown's developer has been making out loud for a year.

For most of twenty years, the North DeKalb Mall site was going to be a Costco. That plan died in 2018. What stands there in September 2026 is a finished Publix shell, 303 apartments topping out, and a county tax deal worth up to $70 million. This is the first version close enough to measure.

Middleburg Communities has filed plans to raze two buildings on Maple Drive for a six-story, 315-unit project. One of them is the Zone 2 main precinct. Nothing is approved, no relocation has been announced, and the Buckhead DRC takes a first read October 7.

Decatur put a $13 million tax incentive behind a grocery store on the Baby Kroger block, and the lease AMLI certified in February runs 15,000 square feet, the same footprint as the store that closed in 2022. Here is what is signed, what is not, and when it opens.

DeKalb has posted a $10 million down payment fund offering up to $20,000 a household. There is still no application, no published purchase price cap, and the money arrives as a recorded second mortgage with a ten-year clock. What a buyer writing an offer this fall should actually plan around.

The 80,000-square-foot Kroger box at Belvedere Plaza is being cut into three national retailers. The grocery store residents have asked for since 2025 goes somewhere else, later and smaller, at the Columbia Drive end. And $600,000 of DeKalb's $3 million award depends on whether it gets signed.

A year ago, Decide DeKalb put $2.255 million behind 18 for-sale cottages on Midway Road, with home sales estimated to start in September 2026. The two lots are now cleared. The developer says foundations come in November or December, with first homes possibly delivered around fall 2027.