| Buckhead | |
|---|---|
| — District — | |
| The Buckhead skyline as seen from the west | |
|
Buckhead
|
|
| Coordinates: | |
| Elevation | 225-320 m (738-1,050 ft) |
| Population (2007) | |
| • Total | 100,000 (approximately) |
| Time zone | EST (UTC-5) |
| • Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) |
| Website | buckhead.net |
Buckhead is the uptown district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States, comprising approximately the northern one-fifth of the city. Buckhead is a major commercial and financial center of the Southeast, and it is the third-largest business district in Atlanta, behind Downtown and Midtown. The district's high-rise office buildings, hotels, and condominiums form a highly urbanized core along Peachtree Road. Surrounding this dense core are Buckhead's suburban neighborhoods, which feature large single-family homes situated among dense forests and rolling hills.
Contents |
In 1838, Henry Irby purchased 202 1/2 acres surrounding the present intersection of Peachtree, Roswell, and West Paces Ferry Roads from Daniel Johnson for $650. Irby subsequently established a general store and tavern at the northwest corner of the intersection.[1] The name "Buckhead" comes from a story that Irby killed a large buck deer and placed the head in a prominent location.[2] Prior to this, the settlement had been called Irbyville.[3] By the late 1800s, Buckhead had become a rural vacation spot for wealthy Atlantans.[4]
Buckhead remained dominated by country estates until after World War I, when many of Atlanta's wealthy began building mansions among the area's rolling hills. Despite the stock market crash of 1929, lavish mansions were still constructed in Buckhead throughout the Great Depression. In 1930, Henry Aaron Alexander built one of the largest homes on Peachtree Road, a 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m2) house with 33 rooms and 13 bathrooms.[5] The community was annexed by Atlanta in 1952, following an earlier attempt by Mayor William B. Hartsfield in 1946 that was voted down by residents.[3]
In 1956, an estate known as Joyeuse was chosen as the site for a major shopping center to be known as Lenox Square. The mall was designed by Joe Amisano, an architect who designed many of Atlanta's modernist buildings. When Lenox Square opened in 1959, it was one of the first malls in the country, and the largest shopping center in the south. Office development soon followed with the construction of Tower Place in 1974.
To reverse a downturn in Buckhead Village during the 1980s, minimum parking spot requirements for bars were lifted, which quickly led to it becoming the most dense concentration of bars and clubs in the city,[6] such as BAR, World Bar, Lulu's Bait Shack, Mako's, Tongue & Groove, Chaos and John Harvard's Brew House. [7]
Beginning in 2000, residents sought to ameliorate the crime situation by taking measures to reduce the community's nightlife and re-establish a more residential character. The Buckhead Coalition's president and former Atlanta Mayor Sam Massell, along with councilwoman Mary Norwood were instrumental in persuading the Atlanta City Council to pass a local ordinance to close bars at 2:30 a.m. rather than 4 a.m., and liquor licenses were made more difficult to obtain. Eventually, most of the Buckhead Village nightlife district was acquired for the confusingly named[8] "Buckhead Atlanta" (formerly "Streets of Buckhead") multi-use project, and many of the former bars and clubs were razed in 2007.
In June 2008, a newsletter [9] by the Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation began circulating that proposed the secession of Buckhead into its own city after more than 50 years as part of Atlanta. This came on the heels of neighboring Sandy Springs, which finally became a city in late 2005 after a 30-year struggle to incorporate, and which triggered other such incorporations in metro Atlanta's northern suburbs. Like those cities, the argument to create a city of Buckhead is based on the desire for more local control and lower taxes.
Buckhead roughly covers the interior of the "V" formed by Interstate 85 on the east and Interstate 75 on the west. Buckhead is bordered by:
Buckhead comprises most of the neighborhoods of Atlanta's north side, 43 in total.[10][12]
|
|
|
According to Forbes Magazine, Buckhead is home to the ninth-wealthiest zip code in the nation (30327), with a household income in excess of $341,000 per year and is the location of the wealthiest of Atlanta's neighborhoods.[13] Home to the Georgia Governor's Mansion, the area's real estate market is also the most expensive in the state of Georgia with an average home value in 2005 of approximately $761,000.[14][15] Two of the nation's fourteen Mobil five-star restaurants — Seeger's and The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead — can be found here. The Robb Report magazine has consistently ranked Buckhead one of the nation's "10 Top Affluent Communities" due to "the most beautiful mansions, best shopping, and finest restaurants in the Southeastern United States".[16][17][18][19][20] Due to its wealth, Buckhead is sometimes promoted as the "Beverly Hills of the East" or "Beverly Hills of the South" in reference to Beverly Hills, California, an area to which it is often compared.[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
At the heart of Buckhead around the intersections of Lenox, Peachtree and Piedmont Roads, is an internationally renowned shopping district with more than 1,400 retail units where shoppers spend more than $1 billion a year.[29] In addition, Buckhead contains the highest concentration of upscale boutiques in the United States.[30] The majority are located at Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza, sister regional malls located diagonally across from each other at the intersection of Peachtree St. and Lenox Rd. The malls are home to designer boutiques, mainstream national retailers, as well as 6 major department stores.
This commercial core also has a concentration of big-box retailers (Target, DSW, Sports Authority, Dick's Sporting Goods, etc.), many in multi-story complexes.
The confusingly named[31] "Buckhead Atlanta" (formerly "Streets of Buckhead") mixed use development originally aimed to bring even more exclusive boutiques, restaurants, hotels, condos and office space to Buckhead. In May 2011 new developer Oliver McMillan bought the property and plans to build a scaled-down version: "not...a Rodeo Drive-type development", the level of restaurants and retail "somewhat different". It is now to be an "urban village" woven into the community with 300,000 square feet (28,000 m2) of retail and restaurants, 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2) of boutique offices and two 20-story luxury apartment buildings.[32]
Other neighborhood shopping areas in Buckhead, mostly suburban-style shopping centers, include Lindbergh Center, Powers Ferry Village, Chastain Square, and Paces Ferry Village.
While much of west and north Buckhead is preserved as single-family homes in forested settings, the Peachtree Road corridor has become a major focus of high-rise construction. The first 400-foot (121 m) office tower, Tower Place, opened in 1974. Park Place, in 1986, was the first 400+ foot (121+ m) condominium. 1986 Also saw the completion of the 425-foot (129 m), 34-story Atlanta Plaza, then Buckhead's tallest and largest building. In 2000, Park Avenue Condominiums upped the ante, pushing the record to 486 feet (148 m). Since that time, a wave of development has followed. The 660-foot (201 m) Sovereign and 580-foot (177 m) Mansion on Peachtree were completed in late 2008. Today, Buckhead has over 50 high-rise buildings, almost one-third of the city's total.[33]
Public schools in Buckhead are administered by Atlanta Public Schools.
The following public elementary schools serve Buckhead:
The area is served by Sutton Middle School and North Atlanta High School.
Local private schools include the Atlanta International School, the Atlanta Speech School, Christ the King School, the Atlanta Girls School, The Galloway School, The Heiskell School, Holy Spirit Preparatory School, Trinity School, The Lovett School, Pace Academy, and The Westminster Schools.
The University of Georgia's Terry College of Business Executive Education Center is located in Buckhead. This facility houses the University's executive MBA program and Terry Third Thursday, a lecture series featuring business leaders.
Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System operates the Buckhead Branch.[34]
Buckhead is home both to Piedmont Hospital and the private, catastrophic care hospital Shepherd Center which specializes in spinal cord injury and acquired brain injury. The two hospitals are located adjacent to one another along Peachtree Road. This location is known as "Cardiac Hill" by runners of the annual Peachtree Road Race.
The main north-south street of Buckhead is Peachtree Road, which extends south into the heart of the city as Atlanta's main street, Peachtree Street. This name change is significant in that it defines a border between Buckhead and Midtown. The main east-west street is Paces Ferry Road, named for a former ferry used to cross the Chattahoochee River. Hardy Pace, one of Atlanta's founders, operated the ferry and owned much of what is now Buckhead, and as far west as Vinings. In addition to Peachtree and West Paces Ferry Roads, other arterial roads include Piedmont Road (Georgia 237), Roswell Road (Georgia State Route 9), and Northside Parkway.
In the early 1990s, after a bitter fight against GDOT by residents, Buckhead was split in two by Georgia 400, a tolled extension of a freeway connecting I-285 to I-85. However, MARTA's new north line was put in the highway's median, providing mass transit for Buckhead and Sandy Springs residents.[35][36][37]
MARTA has three stations in Buckhead, the southernmost being Lindbergh Center. Just north of there, the original northeast (orange) and later north (red) lines split, with Lenox at the southwest corner of the Lenox Square parking lot, and Buckhead on the west side of the malls where Peachtree crosses 400. A free circulator bus called "the buc" (Buckhead Uptown Connection) stops at all three stations. The proposed Peachtree Streetcar project would provide street-level service with frequent stops all the way to downtown Atlanta, complementing the existing subway-type MARTA train service.[37][38]
Consulates in Buckhead include the Consulate-General of Australia and the Australian Trade Commission,[39] the Consulate-General of France and the French Trade Commission,[40] the Consulate-General of Brazil, the Consulate-General of Japan,[41][42] and the Consulate of Greece.[43]
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||