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Buckhead (Atlanta)
The Buckhead skyline as seen from Lenox Square.
History and economy
The Buckhead skyline as seen from Cobb County, Georgia. 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. The main north-south street is Peachtree Road, which extends south into the heart of the city as Peachtree Street. This name change is significant in that it defines a border between Buckhead and Midtown Atlanta. The main east-west street is West Paces Ferry Road, named for a former ferry across 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. The area north of Buckhead, beyond the Atlanta city limit, is the city of Sandy Springs. According to Forbes Magazine, Buckhead is home to the 9th 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. Home to the Governor 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.[2][3][4] Claiming two of the nation's fourteen Mobil five-star restaurants — Seeger's and The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead, publications often refer to Buckhead as the "Beverly Hills of the South," and Robb Report magazine has consistently ranked it one of the nation's "10 Top Affluent Communities" for "some of the most beautiful mansions, best shopping and finest restaurants in the Southeastern United States".[5][6][7][8][9] Buckhead is also an internationally renowned shopping district with more than 1,400 retail units where shoppers spend more than $1 billion a year.[10] Historically the primary shopping district comprises Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza--sister malls located diagonally across Peachtree Road from each other (housing more than 350 boutiques and offering the highest concentration of high-end stores in the United States) but the area has a new retail development under way. Known as The Streets of Buckhead, the development will bring a clutch of exclusive boutiques to Atlanta in a street level shopping district as well as the 5 star St.Regis Hotel Atlanta, additional upscale dining options, new mulit-million dollar condominums and office space. Some of the tenants announced to come to The Streets of Buckhead include Bottega Veneta, Vilebrequin, Oscar de la Renta, Brioni, Christofle, John Lobb, and Loro Piana. [11] The development is quoted as being part of a vision to turn Peachtree Road into a viable shopping and entertainment vicinity much like Fifth Avenue, with Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza to the north and the Streets of Buckhead to the south.[12][13] To reverse a downturn in the Village area 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.[14] During the late 1990s Buckhead experienced an increased crime rate around the area's nightclubs and shopping districts, culminating in several gang-style shoot-outs and homicides including one involving NFL star Ray Lewis. Beginning in 2004, residents sought to ameliorate this situation by taking measures to reduce the community's nightlife and re-establish a more residential character. The Buckhead Coalition was instrumental in persuading the Atlanta City Council to pass an ordinance to close bars at 2:30 a.m. rather than 4 a.m., and liquor licenses were made more difficult to obtain. Buckhead maintains its title as Atlanta's entertainment district, with more than 300 restaurants, bars and night clubs still in operation.[15] Buckhead high-rise buildings
A portion of the Buckhead skyline. EducationPrimary and secondary schoolsPublic schoolsBuckhead, like all areas of Atlanta, is part of the Atlanta Public Schools district. The following public elementary schools serve Buckhead:
The area is served by Sutton Middle School and North Atlanta High School. Private schoolsLocal 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, The Lovett School, Pace Academy, and The Westminster Schools. Colleges and universitiesAlso located in Buckhead is the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business Executive Education Center. This facility houses the e.M.B.A. program and Terry Third Thursday, a lecture series featuring business leaders. Public librariesAtlanta-Fulton Public Library System operates the Buckhead Branch http://www.af.public.lib.ga.us/buckhead_branch.html. HealthcareBuckhead 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 called "Cardiac Hill" by runners of the annual Peachtree Road Race. TransportationBesides Peachtree, other arterial roads include Piedmont Road (Georgia 237), Roswell Road (Georgia 9), and Paces Ferry Road. In the early 1990s, after a bitter fight against GDOT by residents, Buckhead was severed by Georgia 400, a tolled extension of a freeway which was to connect all the way to the south side of Atlanta. However, MARTA's new north line was put in the road median, providing mass transit for Buckhead and Sandy Springs residents. 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 (since late 1996) Buckhead on the west side of the malls at Peachtree and 400. A circulator bus called "the buc" (Buckhead Uptown Connection) notes that "the buc stops here" 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. Proposed secessionIn June 2008, a newsletter by the Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation began circulating that proposes the secession of Buckhead into its own city after more than 50 years as part of Atlanta. This comes on the heels of neighboring Sandy Springs, which finally became a city in late 2005 but was previously unincorporated, and which triggered other such incorporations in metro Atlanta's northern suburbs. Like those cities, the argument is one of local control and taxes, although unlike Fulton and neighboring DeKalb counties, Atlanta has divisions called neighborhood planning units intended to address such issues. Additionally, there is already an incorporated Buckhead, Georgia, thus it would have to choose a different name (or convince the existing town to do so). The Georgia General Assembly and governor of Georgia would have to approve both the deannexation and the new city, as would a majority in a referendum, both of which could be extremely divisive along race and class lines. Buckhead has about 45% of the city's tax base, both in property taxes and sales taxes. Buckhead's total valuation for 2008 is 72.4 billion dollars, the loss of which would be a crippling blow to the city's finances. Trivia
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