Most evenings, a familiar rotation of walkers, runners, and cyclists covers the same mile and a third of pavement between North Druid Hills Road and Briarwood Road. It's the paved stretch of the Peachtree Creek Greenway that locals call the Model Mile, open since December 2019, lit at night, with benches spaced along the way and a bridge over the creek that still gets pointed out to anyone new to the neighborhood. The trail itself hasn't grown an inch since it opened. Everything circling it has.
This summer, a pizza spot signed a lease on Clairmont Road, a juice bar opened its doors on Peachtree, and two separate development deals worth a combined three-quarters of a billion dollars got approved with direct references to a trail extension that hasn't broken ground. None of that is coincidence. The pattern is the story: in Brookhaven right now, capital is moving toward a finished map of the Greenway well before the pavement catches up to it.
The trail that actually exists today
Start with what's real. The Model Mile runs 1.3 miles along the north fork of Peachtree Creek, connecting three trailheads with visitor parking at North Druid Hills Road, Corporate Boulevard, and Briarwood Road. It's fully paved, ADA compliant, and was built by the PATH Foundation as what planners across four municipalities still refer to as the proof of concept for the rest of the project.
The next stretch got real money this spring. In May, the Atlanta Regional Commission voted to award $13,593,489 in federal funding to complete Phase II of the Greenway, which extends the current trail from North Druid Hills Road toward the Atlanta city line. Once built, that segment links up with PATH400, the Atlanta Beltline's Northeast Trail, and the South Fork Conservancy Trails, along with last-mile pedestrian access to MARTA's Buford Highway bus line and the Lindbergh station. Mayor John Park framed the vote as a turning point for the city. The dollar figure behind that statement is the part worth remembering.
Phase III is the piece that matters most for anyone on the east side of the neighborhood. It would extend the trail from Briarwood Road out to Clairmont Road and the Chamblee line, a stretch the city awarded to engineering firm Heath and Lineback in December 2024. It isn't settled yet. In January, the Brookhaven City Council committed roughly $28,000 to study a third possible alignment after residents near the Hendrix and Avana Uptown apartment complexes raised concerns about the trail cutting through their property. The objection wasn't to the trail existing. It was about who gets a door onto it. That's the kind of friction that shows up in infrastructure long before it shows up in a headline, and it's a reminder that the finished map still has some negotiating left to do.
| Phase | Status as of August 2026 | What it connects |
|---|---|---|
| Phase I, the Model Mile | Open since December 2019, 1.3 miles | North Druid Hills Road to Briarwood Road |
| Phase II | $13.6 million in federal funding secured in May 2026 | Extends toward the Atlanta city line, linking to PATH400, the Beltline's Northeast Trail, and South Fork Conservancy Trails |
| Phase III | Design underway, alignment still being finalized | Briarwood Road to Clairmont Road and the Chamblee line |
Two deals that priced in a trail nobody can walk yet
The clearest evidence that the Greenway's future path is already worth money to somebody sits in two projects that got approved this year, neither of which needed the trail to exist to build around it.
The first is Northbend, a proposed $600 million redevelopment set to replace Corporate Square, sitting directly along the Greenway's completed first phase. The second is a $150 million private redevelopment along North Druid Hills Road that was approved with direct connections to the Greenway built into the plan, including an $8 million investment in the trail's own infrastructure as part of the deal. Neither developer is betting on the mile that exists today. Both are betting on the twelve-plus miles that don't.
That's the part a resident who already lives here should sit with for a second. The Greenway's full build-out is meant to span 12.3 miles once every phase across Atlanta, Brookhaven, Chamblee, and Doraville is finished. Right now, barely a tenth of that is walkable. The private money moving in already treats the rest as inevitable.
Where the new restaurants actually are, and where they aren't yet
If the big development money is pointed at the finished trail, the smaller, faster-moving restaurant scene tells you where Brookhaven's daily life is centered right now, which is mostly still the old commercial core along Peachtree Road and Town Brookhaven.
Beyond Juicery + Eatery opened its doors on July 25, its third Georgia location, run by franchise partners Ricky Burch and Ross Hare. A second metro location of El Valle, the Mexican restaurant known for its Latin wine list, is heading to Brookhaven as well. Both fit the pattern of a neighborhood that's still filling in around its established center rather than its edges. C&S Seafood and Oyster Bar, the 3,900 square foot seafood spot on Peachtree Road that's anchored that stretch since 2023, remains the reference point most people use when they describe where to eat in Brookhaven. None of that is on or near the Greenway corridor.
The one exception worth watching is Unkie's Pizza and Bar, the concept from Richard Gazaway and Michael Colombo slated to open this year at 3400 Clairmont Road, in the space that used to hold The Greek Pizzeria & Gyros. Clairmont Road is not an arbitrary address. It's the exact terminus the city has drawn for Phase III of the Greenway. Whether that's a deliberate bet on future foot traffic or simple availability of a good storefront, it puts a real business at the edge of a line that mostly exists on planning documents right now. If Phase III moves forward the way the current alignment suggests, Unkie's won't be sitting at that end of the trail alone for long.
What's actually on the calendar
None of this changes the smaller rhythms of the month. Town Brookhaven already hosted its monthly Handmade Haven market at 4330 Peachtree Road at the start of August, the recurring Saturday where local art, candles, and vintage clothing set up with free parking on site. It'll be back again next month, same spot. The date actually worth marking down is in September, when Explore Brookhaven runs the city's first-ever Restaurant Month, with a free digital pass that rewards checking in at three participating restaurants with 15 percent off a ticket to Taste Brookhaven on October 2. Good to know. Neither one tells you anything about where the neighborhood is headed the way the funding votes and the address on Clairmont Road do.
What this actually means if you already live here
The mile you're walking this week hasn't changed in years. But the money circling it has already decided what the next several years look like, connecting the Model Mile to the Beltline, to MARTA, to a $600 million redevelopment and a $150 million one, before a single additional foot of pavement gets poured. That gap between what's funded and what's finished is exactly where a neighborhood's character gets decided, quietly, months or years before anyone sees it in a walk score or a real estate listing.
Keep an eye on Clairmont Road. Keep an eye on whether the third alignment study near the Hendrix and Avana Uptown apartments resolves in favor of a connected trail or a walled-off one. Those two threads, more than any restaurant opening this month, are the ones that will tell you what Brookhaven looks like in five years.
If you're weighing a move within Brookhaven or want a clearer read on how projects like these tend to shift value street by street, Good Living Real Estate tracks this kind of local detail closely. Get your free home valuation and we'll walk you through what we're seeing on the ground.
