In 2016, September Gray opened her gallery inside TULA, the arts building at the end of Bennett Street. At the time the street still had antiques marts, rug shops and a mix of small businesses. By late 2021, ArtsATL reported that she was sharing a 9,000-square-foot former auto salon at the end of Miami Circle with Marcia Wood and Mason Fine Art. Her reasons included the street's changing character and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia's announced plan to leave TULA for the Goat Farm.
That move happened about five years before the excavators showed up on Bennett Street this fall. Many of the galleries and dealers once associated with Bennett Street were already operating on Miami Circle when demolition started. What replaces the cleared buildings is a Beltline trail crossing at Peachtree Road and, eventually, mixed-income housing and commercial space.
What is coming down at Peachtree Road and Bennett Street
On August 5, 2026, Atlanta Beltline Inc. announced that it would demolish six vacant buildings on Bennett Street, about 75,000 square feet in all. Work was set to start in mid-August and finish by the end of the year. The Beltline also said businesses at the west end of Bennett Street would stay open during demolition.
The Beltline assembled the site in pieces. In November 2024 it bought nearly an acre at 2110 Peachtree Road, and in August 2025 it added six parcels near Peachtree Road and Bennett Street. Urbanize Atlanta reported that the purchases included the former Elleven45 Lounge, bought in 2024. The agency now owns 3.2 acres on Bennett Street, paid $29 million in total, and this is its first land along the Peachtree Road corridor.
The Beltline gives two reasons for the location. Buckhead has no abandoned rail line for the Northwest Trail to follow, so the agency has had to buy its way through, as SaportaReport noted when the parcels closed. The site also sits just north of Piedmont Hospital, the Shepherd Center and other employers that together make up the largest jobs hub along the 22-mile loop.
A street that has changed hands before
This is not Bennett Street's first change of use. A 2008 history in Rough Draft Atlanta traces the lots to 1910. Owners of the Peachtree Road mansions used houses on Bennett to lodge their household staff. After World War II the street held auto-repair shops, carpenters and light manufacturers. Antique auctions arrived in the late 1970s as the manufacturers left, and in the mid-to-late 1980s the buildings were divided into smaller spaces for art and antiques dealers.
That 2008 profile lists the district at its peak: Interiors Market, The Stalls, Nottingham Antiques, Beaman Antiques, Deadwyler Antiques, Tyner Antiques, Bennett Street Gallery, Matre Gallery, Horton Custom Frames, Anne Irwin Fine Art, Thomas Deans Fine Art, the rug dealers Allan Arthur and Overton Rugs, and TULA Art Center. TULA was home to MOCA GA, which had moved in that February. Each earlier change left the old buildings in place with new tenants inside. The current one removes the buildings.
Where the names landed
Several of the best-known names from that list now operate elsewhere in Atlanta, most of them on Miami Circle.
| Business | Tie to Bennett Street | Where it is now |
|---|---|---|
| Anne Irwin Fine Art | On the 2008 Bennett Street gallery list | 690 Miami Circle NE, #150 |
| Thomas Deans Fine Art | On the 2008 Bennett Street gallery list | 690 Miami Circle NE, #905 |
| Interiors Market | A 2023 guide placed its 10,000-square-foot warehouse on Bennett, with a satellite on Miami Circle | Listed in the 2026 Shops of Miami Circle directory |
| MOCA GA | Moved into TULA in 2008 | 1260 Foster Street NW, Goat Farm Arts Center |
Interiors Market shows how the move happened gradually. Discover Atlanta's 2023 guide to Bennett Street described a store that had served designers since 1992 and already kept a second location on Miami Circle. The Shops of Miami Circle directory, published in August 2026, lists Interiors Market among that street's merchants.
When ArtsATL looked at the shift in 2021, the explanation was mostly about real estate. Gallerists rarely own their spaces, so they move when rents rise or buildings change hands. Miami Circle offered affordable rent, ample parking, frame shops and auction houses nearby, and buildings owned individually rather than by one landlord. Some dealers saw that last point as protection against a single redevelopment pushing everyone out at once. By then the number of galleries on the street had grown to about a dozen, alongside some 60 home décor showrooms. Charles Reinike, whose gallery has been on Miami Circle since 1993, put it this way to ArtsATL:
"Everything is so spread out. I think we have the largest concentration of galleries in Atlanta."
The street has had losses since then. Signature, the contemporary craft gallery that moved from Roswell Road to Miami Circle, closed its storefront at the end of December 2024 after 62 years in business, according to the Shops of Miami Circle. The concentration of galleries and dealers has stayed in place.
Miami Circle this month
Miami Circle runs off Piedmont Avenue near Sidney Marcus Boulevard. It is a dead-end street, so it carries less through traffic than Bennett Street did. Two exhibitions are open on the street through Thanksgiving week and into December:
- Anne Irwin Fine Art, "Georgia On My Mind." A group show of six Georgia-based artists, which opened Friday, November 13, and runs through November 29, 2026. Details are on Anne Irwin's exhibitions page.
- Pryor Fine Art, Wendy Chidester. On view November 6 through December 4, 2026, according to Pryor's exhibition listing.
You can visit the rest of the street on the same trip. The Shops of Miami Circle directory lists these galleries and showrooms:
- Galleries: Hayes + Stone Contemporary at 690 Miami Circle, Suite 125, plus Thomas Deans Fine Art and Pryor Fine Art. Reinike Gallery says on its site that it is showing work now.
- Antiques: Dearing Antiques, which also shows John Tribble's J. Tribble collection, along with Foxglove Antiques Collective, with more than a dozen dealers in a 15,000-square-foot showroom, plus William Word Antiques and Acquisitions.
- Rugs, lighting and furniture: Jubin Rugs, The Lamp Shoppe, The Mission Motif, which is Atlanta's authorized Stickley dealer, plus Ghenogas Gallery and Ansley Interiors.
- Linens and textiles: Busatti Villa is open by appointment, and the directory notes that Fridays are typical open days.
What takes Bennett Street's place, and when
The cleared land becomes a trail link first. In late October, the Beltline broke ground on Northwest Trail Segment 2A, a 0.3-mile section that branches off the finished trails around Bobby Jones Golf Course and runs east toward Peachtree Road. It connects Collier Hills North and Colonial Homes. Urbanize Atlanta reported that it will be a 14-foot-wide trail with a pedestrian bridge, an elevated section and Trees Atlanta landscaping. The PATH Foundation is the program manager, Heath & Lineback designed it, and Hasbun Construction is building it.
The work is staged in this order:
- Bennett Street demolition, which the Beltline expects to finish by the end of 2026.
- Section C, a 0.1-mile piece from Peachtree Road to Peachtree Park Apartments, expected to start construction in early 2027.
- Segment 2A, scheduled to finish in early 2028. It includes a temporary trail connection to Peachtree Road with new pedestrian-friendly traffic signals.
- The Peachtree Road bridge, which the Georgia Department of Transportation will replace. The Beltline says that work is scheduled to start in 2028. Trail users will cross Peachtree at street level until the new bridge is done, and then the permanent trail will run beneath Peachtree Road.
When the full Northwest Trail is finished, it will run 4.3 miles, from Blandtown in the west around to the Lindbergh and Morosgo neighborhoods. On the Bennett Street land itself, the Beltline plans mixed-income housing and commercial space along the trail. The design has not been set and will follow a planning and community engagement process, with meetings posted on the Beltline's events page.
Until then, Bennett Street will be mostly a construction site for the next few years. Many of the galleries and antiques dealers tied to its name are on Miami Circle, where Anne Irwin's Georgia show runs through November 29 and Pryor's Wendy Chidester exhibition runs through December 4.
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