Once the renovation of the Midtown Promenade shopping center is completed, a wide range of new businesses will be opening their doors to the Midtown community and the BeltLine. 

“The space used to be Richard’s Variety Store and Tuesday Morning,” said Anna Crist, associate for SRS real estate partners. “So, two huge, big box stores and Asana Partners, who is the landlord and owner of the property, are doing the redevelopment. They have divided those spaces up and put a pedestrian walkway through the center of it that connects the parking lot instead of the traditional front of the building of the development to the BeltLine.”

Asana Partners has done other urban redevelopment in Atlanta, such as Krog Street Market. Crist thinks that their experience with similar projects will help them use the open space of Midtown Promenade to their advantage. 

“Asana Partners saw the property as underutilized,” Crist said. “Before, there were trees in the way of the BeltLine. You didn’t really know what was on the other side of this development; so, now it really draws people in.”

The location along the BeltLine is expected to play a key role in the success of the center. With the connection to the BeltLine and the increased pedestrian traffic, the new walkway will likely be an important component to the business the center plans to acquire.  

“This part of the BeltLine gets a ton of pedestrian traffic from Piedmont Park going towards Ponce City Market and vice versa,” Crist said. “So, there’s already a ton of people walking right by the center. This [walkway] is just a new connecting point for pedestrians to actually enter the development.”

With the prime location, new businesses are hoping for success at Midtown Promenade. The center has already attracted popular businesses, such as The Whole Dog Market, which was previously located at the shopping center at 10th Street and Monroe Drive.

“I think [the connection] will bring a lot more business,” Crist said. “Now people can come to yoga, have brunch at Snooze, bring their animals to the animal hospital and grab food at Whole Dog Market. Whole Dog Market was in [another] center, but they decided that with the synergy happening at this center, they wanted to be over here [near the new BeltLine connection].”

The increased BeltLine traffic will also help existing businesses, such as Trader Joe’s. Mari Pallas, a crew member at Trader Joe’s, has seen the renovation take place over the past year.

 “I feel like it will bring more people to the area,” Pallas said. “They’ll see that there’s a Trader Joe’s here and then be like, ‘Oh, why not go in here.’’”

Although the renovation seems to be headed for a successful future, some people, like junior Solunne Fedovskiy, wish the center had never changed. 

“I was really sad when they took away Richard’s Variety Store,” Fedovskiy said. “I used to go there all the time, and they had really cool trinkets. It was walkable from the school and now there’s just a bunch of random stuff. They kind of modernized the whole area.”

Pallas also has some concerns about the traffic the new businesses might bring to the center once the renovation is complete. 

“I think that this is already a high traffic area and that they haven’t really added more space [for parking],” Pallas said. “I think it’s going to be really crowded.”

Businesses at the center will be impacted, but so will the Midtown community. A community-based location was the inspiration behind the renovation of Midtown Promenade. 

“I think it was really to make the center more community facing,” Crist said. “It already was a Trader Joe’s kind of place, where people went for daily needs and went to Metro Fresh and Mellow Mushroom, but it was really turning the center into a connecting point for the BeltLine and drawing people off the BeltLine and into the center.”