The monthly Critical Mass bike ride takes place this Friday. Starting around 6 p.m., cyclists will gather at Woodruff Park in downtown and pedal where their urges take them. Commenters on the ride’s message board — it doesn’t have any real political or power structure — are requesting the pack makes its way through East Atlanta. For more information or to ask questions of the group, click here to visit its message board.
Oakhurst residents are pooling ideas on the community’s online message board and crossing their fingers for a grocery store to occupy the strip mall that houses Mulligan’s bar on East Lake Drive. Some want to see the packaged-goods luxury-grub chain take its place and are encouraging neighbors to tell Trader Joe’s. Others want a store akin to the Candler Market located in that eponymous neighborhood.
A thought from “Christi”:
Basically we just need some sort of option that Oakhurst residents can walk to to purchase decent groceries! I think the neighborhood has definitely reached the point of being able to support some sort of small grocery store.
Here’s what another resident says about previous conversations regarding bringing in the chain:
I took the Decatur 101 class in March and the word that we got in
that class was that Trader Joes was not interested in Decatur. The
demographics were too mixed for them. They apparently go by the
30030 zip code when looking for locations and that zip includes some
areas that they consider too transitional (or maybe not transitional
enough).
“Lackofascreenname” offers some thoughts worth keeping in mind:
That would be sweet but, as I understand it, it definitely comes with
some challenges.First, East Lake/Oakview don’t have the traffic counts TJ’s typically
requires. And, given our diversity of opinion on other growth-related
issues, I have to assume that if a TJ’s in Oakhurst began to induce
the kind of traffic they want, not everyone in the ‘hood would be
overjoyed about it.Second, the word on the street (so take with a grain of salt) is that
the last time a grocery entity was interested in that space, the
building’s owner insisted upon such a short lease that the cost of
build-out could never be recouped. Of course, there’s always been a
lot of rumors about that strip, so believe what you will…All things considered, I think I’m still a fan of the idea but it’s
always good to have a grasp of the issues up front.
A well-rounded neighborhood with local services needs a nearby store where you can buy food — preferably without having to jump into a car to do so. As communities become more desirable and developed it’s easy for these businesses — many of which operate with very low profit margins — to get edged out. But they’re vitally important. Just like you need transportation options to serve the residents moving to these areas, you need other services that’ll make the community more sustainable.
Downtown Atlanta needs a grocery store. (I’ve seen signs for a planned Kroger located west of City Hall.) Publix already has a pretty good game going in Decatur with locations on Clairemont Road and at Commerce Avenue, but if the city could sneak in a mid-size market downtown it’d surely have a robust customer base of residents who live within walking distance.
By Nadia Ali
I was talking to a young Turkish student at Georgia State the other day, making light conversation and asking about his experiences here in this country — and in Atlanta in particular — and his responses got me thinking. He mentioned many positive things about the United States and about Atlanta, but also compared our city to other big cities in the country — New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. He noted that Atlanta does have a diverse international community, albeit not as large as some of those other mentioned cities — yet he also reflected a little sadly on how hard it was to break into any community here other than one’s “own” ethnicity. Even among the student population, ethnicities tended to clump together more often than not, though there were exceptions among individuals. While this is true in the other big American cities, it seemed to be particularly true for him in Atlanta.
I can’t help remembering that conversation. Maybe because my own father first came to this country in order to go to college, back in the 1960s. He’s been here ever since and has given back to his alma mater (his medical school in particular) as well as to his community, ever since. He doesn’t need someone to reach out to him anymore, but I imagine he did when he first got here. Or maybe because I’ve traveled myself a little bit and know how much it can mean to have someone reach out to you when you are somewhere other than where you were born, on those occasions when you can’t help feeling like a little bit of an outsider. I do know of one group here in Atlanta, the Atlanta Ministry with International Students Inc., which “provides friendship and hospitality to the more than 5,500 international students from 140 nations studying at colleges and universities in the metro-Atlanta area.” Maybe there are other groups here in Atlanta that share that goal and I’m simply not familiar with them. It’s been awhile since I’ve been in college myself, after all. All I know is that it’s a good goal, that of welcoming those who come here to study and to live.
One of the things we pride ourselves on here in Atlanta is that we are always growing, the major, most diversified city of the South (Miami not included!). I think it would be worth our while to make more of a conscious effort to get to know those students and other folks who are choosing to make Atlanta their home and help us grow.
Nadia Ali is the co-producer of the WRFG-FM (89.3) radio show “Just Peace.”
