High Street Dunwoody: Dining, The Green and Block 6 Plans
What does High Street look like from Perimeter Center Parkway? At the Oct. 13 public hearing, Mayor Lynn Deutsch described it as "two big walls." "I think people don't necessarily know what they're seeing at High Street; they don't know what's there," she told council, according to Rough Draft Atlanta.
The developer agrees with her. And the restaurants that opened there this year show the problem clearly, because their best features point toward a lawn that drivers on the parkway never see.
Varuni Napoli opened on Aug. 5. It's the third location for Luca Varuni, whose Morningside restaurant opened in 2014 and whose Krog Street Market stall followed in 2017. The High Street space is nearly 3,000 square feet on the first level. It has a private chef's room next to the kitchen, a bar, and a covered patio overlooking The Green. Pickup and delivery orders go through a takeout window next to the parking garages. The menu brings over the Margherita and the Bastardo from the original locations, plus Italian appetizers, desserts, and wine.
The layout shows how the whole site works. The patio, which is the part you'd sit at for an evening, looks inward at the lawn. The side facing the outside world is a pickup window by a parking deck.
Rosetta Bakery opened on Saturday, Sept. 12, at 120 High Street, as reported by the Dunwoody Brookhaven Ledger. Its High Street store page now says "Now Open." The two Italian spots join an existing lineup:
At the October hearing, GID's Carson Land counted 23 commercial businesses and 13 retail tenants on the property. He named Rosetta and Varuni as the two most recent openings.
The Green is a 0.75-acre park at the center of phase one. GID's programming this year kept people coming back to it week after week. By Oct. 29, almost all of that season has ended.
| Program on The Green | Schedule | Status by Oct. 29 |
|---|---|---|
| Monday Tai Chi | Weekly, open to the public | Last session Oct. 26 |
| Wellness Wednesdays | Outdoor fitness at 6 p.m., rotating instructors, April through October | Season over |
| Social Fridays | Select Fridays with music, games, food and drinks | Final event was Oct. 16 |
| Gatherings on The Green | Second-Saturday artisan market with live music | October edition moved to Sunday, Oct. 18 |
| World of Music | Free jazz, blues, rock and world music | Held Oct. 24 |
| Haunting at High Street | Saturday, Oct. 31, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. | Still ahead |
That leaves one night. After Halloween, the official events calendar has nothing listed for November or December. Back when construction started in 2021, the lawn was pitched as a possible spot for a seasonal ice rink, concerts, and fitness classes. Concerts and fitness classes did happen this year, all of them inside the walls the mayor described.
GID isn't pretending phase one turned out the way it planned. Here is how Land put it to council, as quoted by Rough Draft Atlanta:
"You see phase one existing as this dynamic downtown environment, but it's inward-facing. Our retail vision for phase one hasn't come to fruition as we'd planned."
The numbers back him up. The 36-acre property's zoning, which dates to 2007, allows up to 400,000 square feet of retail, 1,500 condominiums, 1,500 apartments, a combined 635,000 square feet of office space, and two hotels. Phase one, finished in 2024, used 150,000 square feet of that retail allowance. That's less than 40 percent, so most of the retail the zoning allows hasn't been built. Phase one also includes 600 apartments, 90,000 square feet of new loft office space, and 222,000 square feet of existing office space, all connected by The Green.
This project has taken a long time. Council Member Stacey Harris noted that DeKalb County approved the zoning conditions a year before Dunwoody became a city. "High Street was the parting gift to the City of Dunwoody," she said. She also explained that GID held the land through the recession and through COVID before building. Construction finally started in November 2021. Land pointed to one recent sign that the idea works. TriNet chose High Street, which he called "a really great validation of the idea of High Street."
GID's answer is a site plan amendment that applies only to Block 6, which sits in the middle of the planned 10 blocks along Perimeter Center West. The request changes the 2018 site plan but keeps the 2007 limits on what can be built. As presented, it would:
Land said the goal is to "open up the heart of High Street." He described Blocks 5 and 6 as the centerpiece that could pull phase one forward and keep momentum going into phase three. Put simply, the plan would move the kind of space that now sits hidden behind the walls into the middle of the site, where more of Dunwoody can see it.
City staff recommended adding two conditions to the 27 already in the original zoning. On-street parking would have to be parallel only, and GID would have to finish a streetscape along Perimeter Center Parkway. GID said it agrees with both. Council members had their own requests before the amendment came back. They asked for a traffic and parking plan for restaurant deliveries and pickups, clearer details on on-street parking, and more of the site's multi-use trail network built out.
That delivery request connects to the Varuni design above. When the restaurant's street-side presence is a takeout window by a garage, curbside traffic becomes part of the plan. Council responded positively at the Oct. 13 hearing and scheduled its vote for Oct. 26. If you want to know how it went, check the record of that meeting through the City of Dunwoody.
The largest outward connection may come from outside High Street. Rough Draft reports that staff in Dunwoody and Sandy Springs are working on a paved trail connection to PATH400 along Hammond Drive and Peachtree Dunwoody Road. The property sits on the line between the two cities. Add a Perimeter Center Parkway streetscape and a center block with its own greenspace, and High Street would get front doors on more than one side.
Until then, Dunwoody's holiday events happen elsewhere. Create Dunwoody lists Diwali in Dunwoody at the Dunwoody Nature Center, 5343 Roberts Drive, on Saturday, Nov. 7, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. It also lists the Dunwoody Village Holiday Celebration and Lantern Parade on Sunday, Nov. 22, from 3 to 7 p.m. At High Street, the last night of the season is Haunting at High Street on Oct. 31. Varuni's patio overlooks the lawn where it takes place.
Design decisions like which way a patio faces, where the entry sits, and what you see first from the street shape how a place feels to use, whether it's a 36-acre development or a single home. If you're thinking about how your own Dunwoody home shows from the curb and from the inside, Darron O'Bonnon offers a design-forward market consultation that pairs a home valuation with a staging plan built around the rooms and views buyers will remember.
Whether you're in the research phase at the beginning of your real estate search or know exactly what you're looking for, you'll benefit from having a real estate professional.