Lulah Hills Is Getting Built Before the Trail That Leads to It

Say you're standing at the Medlock Park end of the South Fork Peachtree Creek Trail and want a cortado at the old North DeKalb Mall corner. What's the route? The creek trail doesn't get you there yet. The paved connection from Medlock Park to Lulah Hills is still a line in DeKalb County's capital program. The coffee is already being poured.

That mismatch is the most useful thing to understand about Lulah Hills this fall. EDENS has been building the old mall site into a district meant to be reached on foot. Most of what's planned is due within roughly the next five months to two years. The trail that would carry Medlock, Clyde Shepherd and Mason Mill neighbors to it doesn't have a groundbreaking date. For the near future, Lulah Hills will be a walkable place that you mostly reach some other way.

A coffee shop that doubles as the leasing office

Today the only new business open on the site is Refuge Coffee Co. at 3861 N. Druid Hills Road. It opened July 27 as the nonprofit's fifth location. Refuge started in Clarkston in 2014, founded by CEO Kitti Murray. Its baristas and servers are resettled refugees and other immigrants who get job training and personal development through the work. It began as a food truck and now runs four public locations, one shop inside a private office building, and a catering business.

If you used to get your oil changed on this corner, you'll recognize the building. It was a Meineke Car Care Center, and the fuel station canopy and garage doors are still part of the design. A 1965 Volkswagen Beetle painted as Herbie the Love Bug sits inside. The year matches the mall's opening, and the car is set to move into Lulah Hills once the development is done. Its current spot inside the shop is slated to become a pop-up store later on.

The building also serves as the EDENS leasing office. The one storefront open for daily use is also where the rest of the project gets sold. If you want to skip the line on a weekday morning, Refuge's Lulah Hills online ordering page is set up for pickup.

The two holdovers, and one question mark

When North DeKalb Mall opened in 1965, it was the first fully enclosed mall in metro Atlanta. It closed in 2020, and EDENS bought the property the following year. When demolition started in summer 2024, two tenants were kept in place. Marshalls and the AMC theater were meant to bridge the old mall and the new district. In March 2026, EDENS said the theater had been reconfigured from 16 screens to 11 and that both businesses "have and will remain open throughout construction."

Marshalls is still that bridge. The theater is less certain. Urbanize Atlanta reported on October 13 that both were "up and running now." But AMC's own page for the AMC North Dekalb 16 at 2042 Lawrenceville Highway currently says the theater "is temporarily closed" and asks visitors to check back. It gives no reason or reopening date. Before you plan a movie night there, check that page, since it's the most direct source for whether the projectors are running.

Early 2027 is when most of it lands

The quiet stretch doesn't end gradually. Most of the first wave is scheduled to open in the same quarter.

The Publix date has stayed steady. A Publix spokesperson gave the AJC a first-quarter 2027 target back in April 2025, when Publix was named the anchor. EDENS repeated Q1 2027 for the first retail wave in March 2026, and Urbanize's October report still says the store is "set to open in the spring." What What Now Atlanta reported for Honeysuckle, Firepit and Solidcore lines up with the same quarter. That's how a corner with one café and one discount retailer could have groceries, gelato, pizza and a workout studio all within a few months.

Foxtail Coffee, Les Mains Nail Bar, LaserAway, Anthropologie, Design Within Reach and Herman Miller fill out the signed roster. Anthropologie will be on the ground floor of Novel Lulah Hills, the six-story Crescent Communities building at the end of Lulah Avenue. Novel started construction last December. Just this month, RangeWater and Nippon Steel Kowa broke ground on Ellory House, which adds 39,000 square feet of retail to the plan. The full plan calls for 320,000 square feet of retail, restaurants and entertainment, along with about two acres of public greenspace spread across the property. Urbanize describes Lemon Park, across from the Ellory House site, as the largest of those green spaces.

The two miles that would make it a walk

The trail connection has been planned the longest, and it is the furthest from opening.

The PATH Foundation is handling design, permitting and bidding for the trail extensions around the site. The first segment is a planned two-mile path from Medlock Park to the former mall property at Orion Drive. DeKalb County's SPLOST project highlights report, prepared in August 2026, lists the South Fork Peachtree Creek Trail from Medlock Park to Lulah Hills as "Out to Bid," with $8.0 million authorized. The county describes it as extending the trail toward a connection with the Atlanta to Stone Mountain Trail. The report doesn't give a contractor or a construction start date.

When the route went before the Georgia Environmental Protection Division for public comment in 2024, some neighbors worried about the Clyde Shepherd Nature Preserve at 2580 Pine Bluff Drive. Chris Beck, the preserve's president, described the planned alignment to Decaturish:

"The route in CSNP will follow existing boardwalks and the sewer easement along the creek until bridging over to the floodplain across the creek. Also, a sidewalk will be installed along the length of Pine Bluff Drive."

In the same article, Beck said only two trees in declining health would be affected. He also said new soft-surface walking trails are planned in parts of the preserve, and that PATH committed to natural barriers to keep bikes off them. If those plans hold, the walk from the creek to the coffee counter would go along the preserve's boardwalks and a new Pine Bluff Drive sidewalk. Right now that walk means improvising on neighborhood streets.

The Medlock Park end is ready. DeKalb's May 2026 parks presentation lists the Medlock Park playground and the stream-bank restoration there as complete. The wider trail network is moving more slowly. In March, Decide DeKalb approved $951,600 to acquire land for and design two other South Peachtree Creek Trail segments. One runs between Briarcliff Road and I-85. The other serves Margaret Harris School and North Druid Hills Road. The county's forecast for those segments is design and permitting in 2027, construction starting in 2028, and completion in 2029. That's a planning target, not a construction calendar. It's also later than every storefront in the table above except L.L.Bean.

What to watch, in the order it will happen

If you live between Medlock Park and Lawrenceville Highway, here's the sequence over the coming months:

1. Whether AMC North Dekalb updates its "temporarily closed" notice, and when.
2. Publix and the rest of the first retail wave, all targeted for the first quarter of 2027.
3. A DeKalb bid award for the Medlock Park to Lulah Hills trail segment. That's the first step toward a construction start date.
4. The pop-up store in Herbie's current spot inside Refuge, with no date set.
5. Cuevacía in late 2027 and L.L.Bean in 2028.

The trail award is the item on that list that most affects how the district fits into daily life in North Decatur. Until a contractor is on the creek, the boardwalk route from Medlock Park to Lulah Avenue is a plan.

If you own a home near Medlock Park, Clyde Shepherd or Lawrenceville Highway and want to know what a 2027 Publix opening and a still-unscheduled trail could mean for your street, Ellen Cook can walk you through it. Request your personalized home valuation and we'll look at your property alongside what's actually opening on the old mall site and when.