The leasing roster for Oglethorpe Crossing at 3435 Ashford Dunwoody Road reads like a short list of neighborhood errands. It has CVS, First Horizon Bank, Fabricare Cleaners and One Nails. Between them sit two lines with no name attached. One is an 18,132-square-foot space labeled "New Anchor Coming Soon." The other is a 19,756-square-foot inline space marked available.
Add those two together and you get 37,888 square feet. That is the exact size of the Publix that opened there in 1996 and served the center for nearly 30 years. The center's leasing plan divides the old supermarket into two storefronts. That split is the latest move in a pattern Brookhaven has followed for years. The city's big grocery spaces rarely go dark for good. They rotate, and the store that moves in is usually a different kind of store from the one that left.
Cambridge Square had to wait for its Publix
The Publix on Johnson Ferry Road now feels like a fixture, but the space it fills was empty not long ago. Kroger closed its Cambridge Square store in August 2020 after 19 years there, Tomorrow's News Today Atlanta reported. Kroger cited "declining sales and negative profit over an extended period." Before Kroger, the space was a Harris Teeter, and before that a Winn Dixie.
That makes four grocery names in one building, with a gap of almost five years before the latest one arrived. Publix closed its Oglethorpe Crossing store on July 22, 2025, and opened at Cambridge Square, 2010 Johnson Ferry Road, the same day. The new store measures roughly 45,000 square feet, about 20 percent larger than the one it replaced. The move came while the old store reportedly still had lease term left until mid-2027.
The center's owner, Regency Centers, rebuilt more than the grocery space. Atlanta Business Chronicle described a redevelopment that added pedestrian access tied into the existing path network, plus dedicated bicycle parking. Smaller tenants filled in around the anchor:
- Brooklyn Bagel & Deli took about 3,191 square feet that once held a Starbucks and a UPS Store.
- Pet Supplies Plus now holds 8,107 square feet in the former Dollar Tree.
- Swig appears on the current tenant roster in a 1,751-square-foot space.
Your Publix trip now ends a few hundred yards up the road from where it used to. The real change is that the move set off the next swap.
The reported new anchor at Oglethorpe Crossing
When Publix left Ashford Dunwoody Road, its old space turned into an opening for a grocer that would never have wanted all 37,888 square feet. On September 23, Tomorrow's News Today Atlanta reported that, according to several well-placed sources, Trader Joe's plans to take the left portion of the former Publix. The leasing materials leave the remaining space for a small shop or a restaurant. The outlet described itself this way:
"very confident a deal is done or nearly done"
The Dunwoody-Brookhaven Ledger followed the next day. It added that Trader Joe's is known for requiring strict confidentiality from its landlords and leasing agents. That helps explain why the center's own roster still lists the space only as "New Anchor Coming Soon."
The size points the same way. The planned store would be about 18,000 square feet, according to the ToNeTo report. That is large for a chain whose stores usually run between 8,000 and 15,000 square feet. The landlord has done this before. Coro bought Oglethorpe Crossing in 2011. It also owned Chastain Market in Sandy Springs, where it filled a former Sprouts with a Trader Joe's and a Books A Million.
If the store opens as described, Oglethorpe Crossing swaps a full-line supermarket for a specialty grocer plus a second tenant. Today, the closest Trader Joe's stores are all several miles away, per the Ledger:
| Existing Trader Joe's | Address | Approximate distance from Oglethorpe Crossing |
|---|---|---|
| Chastain Park | 4600 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs | About 4 miles |
| Buckhead | 3183 Peachtree Road | About 5 miles |
| Sandy Springs | 6277 Roswell Road | About 5 miles |
The chain went nearly two decades without opening a new metro Atlanta store after launching six between 2006 and 2008. A burst of openings starting in late 2024 brought stores to Alpharetta, Peachtree City, Johns Creek and Sandy Springs. A Brookhaven store would extend that run into a corner of the city that has had a grocery anchor since the mid-1990s.
Skye Hill follows the same pattern on Buford Highway
The third box sits on the other side of the city. Kroger anchored Skye Hill at 3855 Buford Highway for more than 50 years in a store of roughly 42,000 square feet. In October 2025 it closed, one of four metro Atlanta Kroger closures announced that year. 11Alive reported that a company spokesperson described the closures as part of a broader efficiency decision.
Kroger also closed stores in Atlanta, Decatur and Alpharetta. In June, Tomorrow's News Today Atlanta reported that the Brookhaven store was the only one of the four with a known replacement. According to that report, Compare Foods had signed a sublease with Kroger for the space, and its plans then called for an opening as soon as September. Compare Foods is a grocer new to Atlanta, and its banner is owned by Associated Supermarket Group of Port Washington, New York.
The store focuses on groceries for shoppers from across Latin America. The company's own description cites a wide selection of Hispanic and international products, fresh produce, meats and everyday essentials, with locations in New York City, Long Island, New Jersey and North Carolina. The same report placed it among nearby grocers with a similar focus, including Talpa Supermarkets at Plaza Fiesta and City Farmers Market at Northeast Plaza, along with an Aldi.
Here again, a general-purpose supermarket is giving way to a more specialized store sized for its own customers.
What the three swaps add up to
Here is each box, side by side:
- Cambridge Square, 2010 Johnson Ferry Road. It went from Winn Dixie to Harris Teeter to Kroger, then sat empty from August 2020 until Publix opened in July 2025 in a store of roughly 45,000 square feet.
- Oglethorpe Crossing, 3435 Ashford Dunwoody Road. Publix ran a 37,888-square-foot store from 1996 to July 2025. The leasing plan now splits that space into an 18,132-square-foot anchor and a 19,756-square-foot inline space, with Trader Joe's reported as the anchor.
- Skye Hill, 3855 Buford Highway. Kroger ran a roughly 42,000-square-foot store for more than 50 years until October 2025. Compare Foods subleased the space, according to a June 2026 report.
All three buildings remain grocery sites. The city has one supermarket that got bigger and two former supermarkets that are being refilled with something more specific. For anyone living between Ashford Dunwoody and Johnson Ferry, the full Publix run is a little farther north than it used to be, and the store at the old corner may soon carry a different kind of cart. Near Buford Highway, the old Kroger box is leased to a grocer with a narrower, international mix.
The short gap in between has a seasonal fill-in. The city's Holiday Farmers Market runs December 5 and 6, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at City Centre, 4001 Peachtree Road NE.
Shopping centers like Oglethorpe Crossing, Cambridge Square and Skye Hill shape the everyday errands of the streets around them, and buyers often ask about them first. If you live near one of these centers and want to know how your home compares in today's market, Susan Powell and the Good Living Real Estate team can walk you through it. Get your free home valuation.
