Brookhaven's summer feels different this year, and the reason is not on Dresden. It is a mile southwest, in the pocket around Lake Hearn Drive and the North Druid Hills trailhead, where a cafe is finishing buildout, a bagel shop is under construction next door, and a $13.6 million federal award has finally set a clock on a trail extension residents have watched inch forward for seven years. Taken separately, these are three different news items. Taken together, they describe a single shift.
The parts of Brookhaven residents will actually walk this summer are consolidating along the Peachtree Creek Greenway corridor and the AMLI development on Lake Hearn Drive. The Dresden strip is not going anywhere, but for the first time it is not the only center of gravity.
The Lake Hearn pocket picks up two neighbors
The clearest signal is the mixed-use ground floor at AMLI Brookhaven, 1420 Lake Hearn Dr. NE. Larita Cafe is opening there in Suite A, with construction underway and owner Mohammed Saleh targeting a late June or early July opening. The menu is the useful part for anyone deciding whether to walk over: gelato, pastries, sandwiches and coffee, with website offerings ranging from danishes and crepes to focaccia sandwiches and pistachio lattes.
Larita is not opening into empty retail. The brand joins other businesses like Dish's Bagels, which is also currently under construction, and Elan Nails at AMLI Brookhaven. A cafe, a bagel shop, and a nail salon in the same ground floor is not a food hall, but it is enough density to make a Saturday morning loop from the greenway trailhead worth the walk.
For residents who have been through this before, the tell is the tenant mix. This is not a national chain landing on a signed lease. It is a small operator building out a first location with plans to expand. Angie, Saleh's wife and partner in Larita, put it plainly to What Now Atlanta: "I think that area has a lot of potential. We want to make sure we're able to include everybody, young and old. Hopefully it will become a favorite hangout spot for people in the area."
Dresden is not standing still
The counter-argument is Dresden. Parkside continues to attract operators with real reputations. Brookhaven Korean-Japanese restaurant Mirae opened at Parkside on Dresden and hard-launched in January. And the summer's most-watched Brookhaven opening sits at the other end of the culinary spectrum: Siren, a seafood spot from the owners of Arnette's Chop Shop, is slated for summer 2026 in Brookhaven.
Arnette's is a Buckhead reference point, not a Brookhaven one. That is the interesting part. Operators who could have chosen a second Buckhead address are choosing Brookhaven instead, and they are not clustering in a single corridor. What used to read as "Dresden versus everything else" is starting to read as two anchors with a trail between them.
Here is the practical summary for the summer:
| Opening | Where | Timing | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| Larita Cafe | AMLI Brookhaven, 1420 Lake Hearn Dr. NE | Late June / early July 2026 | First location, Mohammed Saleh |
| Dish's Bagels | AMLI Brookhaven, Lake Hearn Dr. NE | Under construction | Expansion |
| Siren | Brookhaven (seafood) | Summer 2026 | Arnette's Chop Shop team |
| Mirae | Parkside on Dresden | Open, hard-launched January 2026 | Korean-Japanese |
$13.6 million says the westward shift is not an accident
The reason Lake Hearn matters is what runs behind it. The Atlanta Regional Commission voted to award $13,593,489 in federal funding to complete Phase II of the Peachtree Creek Greenway, advancing the long-standing regional vision for connectivity, mobility, and economic development along the Buford Highway corridor. The vote happened in May.
The number is worth setting against a baseline. Phase I opened to regional acclaim on December 12, 2019, and residents have been living with a finished but disconnected 1.1 to 1.3 mile stretch ever since. Construction on Phase II is scheduled for 2026 and is anticipated to be completed within 24 months. That is the first hard timeline the project has had since the model mile opened.
The scope is more interesting than the dollar figure. Phase II extends the current Peachtree Creek Greenway from North Druid Hills Road down to Atlanta city limits. From there, the greenway would link to PATH400, the Atlanta Beltline's Northeast Trail, and South Fork Conservancy Trails. A resident standing at the current trailhead can walk 1.1 miles today. When Phase II opens, that same trailhead is a connection point to the entire southern trail network.
The private capital is arriving on the same timeline. Phase II's advancement coincides with a recently approved $150 million private redevelopment along North Druid Hills Road, which will include direct connections to the greenway and an $8 million investment in greenway infrastructure improvements. Urbanize Atlanta pegs the Northbend project at closer to $600 million once fully scoped, replacing Corporate Square along the greenway's first phase. Either figure dwarfs the trail award. The trail is the pretext; the redevelopment is the payoff.
What actually changes on foot this summer
If you live in Ashford Park, Brookhaven Heights, or the streets off Osborne, the practical picture is this:
- The greenway itself is not longer yet. The current stretch runs 1.3 miles from North Druid Hills Road to Briarwood Road, between I-85 and Buford Highway, with three trailheads with parking lots. The trail is fully ADA compliant, lighted at night and has benches, bike repair stations and dog waste stations.
- What is new is the reason to end the walk somewhere. Larita and Dish's put a coffee-and-bagel destination at the North Druid Hills end that did not exist last summer.
- Construction activity along the Phase II corridor is beginning this year. Residents on the Atlanta side of the city line should expect right-of-way work and staging to become visible.
The greenway's build-out is quiet on purpose. The path is a 14-foot-wide concrete multi-use path in a corridor of undeveloped woods and steep creek banks. To minimize impacts to the creek's flood elevation and meet the city's commitment to resilient and environmentally sensitive design standards, final design consists of seven pedestrian bridges and majority boardwalk adjacent to and over the creek. Seven bridges is a lot of bridges. It is also why the timeline is 24 months and not six.
The civic calendar, briefly
Spring's marquee event has already run. The Head and The Heart and Max McNown headlined the 2026 Brookhaven Cherry Blossom Festival, the free event that took place March 28-29 at Blackburn Park, 3493 Ashford Dunwoody Road. The summer stretch is quieter by design, which is what makes the openings above land harder.
Two civic notes to keep on the radar for the second half of the year:
Taste Brookhaven at the new City Centre
Taste Brookhaven, hosted at the new Brookhaven City Centre, will showcase the city's top chefs and restaurants, with dishes, drinks, and entertainment benefiting Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. The venue itself is worth a walk-through. Brookhaven City Centre, the city's newest architectural and cultural landmark, opened last September. The venue combines city government functions with event space, making it a hub for community gatherings. The address is 4001 Peachtree Rd NE.
The greenway 5K keeps its footprint
The Cherry Blossom 5K uses Blackburn Park each March, with 100% of race proceeds going to support Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. A separate fall run on the Peachtree Creek Greenway supports We Love Buford Highway, a nonprofit working along the Buford Highway corridor. Both routes are worth putting on a calendar before registration closes.
The read for residents
For anyone who has lived in Brookhaven long enough to remember when Dresden was the only reason to leave your street, the summer of 2026 is the first time the map has meaningfully changed. The Lake Hearn pocket is small right now, and the greenway extension is a two-year project, not a two-month one. But the direction is set. A resident deciding where to walk on a Saturday morning in July 2027 will have options that did not exist in July 2025, and those options will cluster in a place that was, until very recently, a corporate park with a creek behind it.
The design brief on Phase II reads like a mission statement. Set against the waters of the north fork of Peachtree Creek, the trail promotes engagement with the natural environment, celebrating and bringing focus to land conservation efforts and improving environmental quality. The buildings arriving alongside it are less lyrical, but they are arriving on the same trail.
Thinking about how these shifts affect what your home is worth, or where you might land next inside Brookhaven? Rich Richardson and the team at Team RR live and work these streets, and we are always happy to talk through what the changes mean for your block specifically. Get your instant home valuation on our site, then let's have a real conversation.
