Atlanta Food Truck Park and Market in Buckhead to Become Mixed-Use Development

Food truck parks have become a poster-child land use for a neighborhood in the process of redevelopment, as evidenced by the numerous parking-lot-turned-food-truck-park-turned-highrise one can find in booming cities such as Atlanta. Atlanta Food Truck Park & Market, the first permanent food truck park in Atlanta, appears to be headed that way as Songy Highroads (SHR), an Atlanta-based commercial real estate investment and development firm, announced yesterday (August 18th) that they have purchased the 2.65 acre site and plan to (eventually) construct a mixed-use project there. The project is located at 1850 Howell Mill Rd NW, just north of I-25.

According to the announcement, SHR plans to construct a project comprising more than 200 multifamily units, as well as hospitality and retail uses. The firm has completed a feasibility study, as well as design and development drawings. While construction pricing and engineering is underway, the food truck park will continue to operate on a temporary basis through at least the fall months.

Songy Highroads partnered with Healey Weatherholtz Properties (HWP), a major Howell Mill Road property owner, on the project. HWP Partner Quill O. Healey II remarked that “We’ve been working for 14 years to improve this stretch of Buckhead, and we’re excited to beautify the area with the first-class residential properties that SHR develops.”  SHR Director of Acquisitions Foster Durkee added that “the area is already extremely high-profile, boasting tremendous energy… this might be among the last of Buckhead’s undeveloped mixed-use sites of its size.”

The Howell Mill corridor has seen explosive growth over the past decade or so, transforming a jumble of commercial low-rise, historic buildings and empty lots to yet another highrising extension of the greater downtown area. The Atlanta Food Truck Park rode Howell Mill’s initial round of redevelopment when it established in 2011 as Atlanta’s first permanent food truck park, and the nations largest, according to the park’s website. In 2019, the park became the city’s only all-vegan/vegetarian food truck park, and according to the parks Instagram, it regularly hosts community-oriented events in the space.