Dunwoody's Mayor Says People Don't Know What's Inside High Street. Here's What's Open Behind the Walls

"I think people don't necessarily know what they're seeing at High Street; they don't know what's there," Dunwoody Mayor Lynn Deutsch told council in October, as reported by Rough Draft Atlanta. "They see two big walls."

If you live in Dunwoody or Sandy Springs and know High Street mostly from Perimeter Center Parkway, the mayor is describing you. From the road, the development shows parking structures and building backs. Inside is a district that now opens at 9 a.m. with coffee and pastry, fills up at lunch with a new office workforce, and runs into the evening with pizza, tacos, seafood and mini golf. This fall's openings filled in the first phase, and the next decision in front of the city is about what the street side looks like.

What Phase One Actually Built, Measured Against What's Allowed

High Street's zoning is almost twenty years old. Council Member Stacey Harris noted at the October hearing that DeKalb County approved the zoning conditions for the 36-acre property in 2007, a year before Dunwoody incorporated, and that buildout was delayed for years. She called the site "the parting gift to the City of Dunwoody." The owner, GID Development Group, held the land through the recession and COVID before it started building.

Those 2007 conditions set the ceiling for the whole $2 billion, 10-block project. Phase one, finished in 2024, used only part of it:

The caps in that table are the zoning limits as Rough Draft reported them. GID's own description of the finished project uses a different office number. The May 2025 TriNet announcement posted by the City of Dunwoody says all phases together will include 672,000 square feet of Class A office space, along with the same 400,000 square feet of shopping and dining and two hotels. The retail figure is the same in both sources. So the restaurants and shops you can visit today take up less than 40 percent of the retail space planned for the full site. Everything below is the first installment.

The Fall Openings That Completed the Day

Until this summer, much of High Street's dining leaned toward evenings and weekends. Two openings at 120 High Street changed that.

Varuni Napoli, the Neapolitan pizzeria, opened at 120 High St., Suite 100, on Aug. 5, according to the AJC's August restaurant roundup. Next door, Rosetta Bakery, an Italian bakery, announced a Sept. 12 opening in Suite 110, What Now Atlanta reported. Rough Draft's September roundup listed it as open by month's end.

The morning anchor is Cuddlefish at 290 High St. It's known for its seafood dining room, but it also runs a coffee shop, bakery and market. That side is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Here's how the food and entertainment tenants map out, with addresses from Discover Dunwoody's directory where they're listed:

• Rosetta Bakery, 120 High St., Suite 110: Italian bakery, open this fall
• Varuni Napoli, 120 High St., Suite 100: Neapolitan pizza, opened Aug. 5
• Nando's, 120 High St., Suite 210: peri-peri chicken
• Cuddlefish, 290 High St.: seafood restaurant plus coffee, bakery and market
• Velvet Taco, 100 Middle St.
• Puttshack, 111 High St., Suite 210: tech-driven mini golf with food and drinks
• The Hampton Social, AGAVE Bandido and Ben & Jerry's, all posting weekly hours on High Street's own site

Retail and services share the same blocks: Allen Edmonds, The NOW, SUGARCOAT and SkinSpirit all list current hours on High Street's directory.

Put together, those tenants cover breakfast, lunch, dinner and a late night out without leaving one district. That full-day schedule is new this fall.

The Weekday Crowd Arrived in August

The other change you can't see from Perimeter Center Parkway is who's there on a Tuesday at noon.

TriNet, a California-based HR firm, christened its new Dunwoody office campus at High Street on Aug. 18. The AJC reported it as a $15.4 million investment expected to employ 750 workers by the end of the decade, with large murals by Atlanta-area artists inside. When the deal was announced in May 2025, the City of Dunwoody said TriNet would lease 150,000 square feet.

GID sees the company as proof of concept. "TriNet choosing Dunwoody and High Street specifically was a really great validation of the idea of High Street," Carson Land, GID's vice president of mixed-use development, told council, per Rough Draft Atlanta. "That the sum is greater than the parts, and all these different components create a place where people want to be."

A bakery opening at 9 a.m. and a coffee counter running until 9 p.m. need customers on weekdays, not just weekends. An office building that will grow toward 750 workers supplies them. If you're a neighbor, that means more choices on a weekday and a district with people in it before dinner.

Block 6 Is the Plan to Take Down the Walls

All of this sits behind the "two big walls" the mayor described. The Block 6 proposal that went to council in October is meant to fix that.

GID asked Dunwoody to amend its approved site plan for Block 6, in the center of the 10-block site along Perimeter Center West. The request would replace apartments planned for that block with a parking podium, luxury retail and a central greenspace. The 2007 use limits would stay the same, and the change would apply only to Block 6. Deutsch called the swap critical and said, "I'm excited to see this change, and I hope it happens relatively quickly."

City planning staff recommended adding two conditions to the 27 already in the zoning. One would require on-street parking to be parallel only, and the other would require GID to finish a streetscape along Perimeter Center Parkway. Land said GID accepted all of staff's proposed conditions.

The streetscape condition matters most if you mostly see High Street from your car. Perimeter Center Parkway is where the walls face, and that's the edge the city wants finished. The first public hearing took place Oct. 13. The request, case RZ 26-04, was on council's Oct. 26 agenda for second reading and action. The city keeps zoning outcomes on its planning and zoning decisions page.

Between Now and the Holidays

High Street's own outdoor series ended in October. Social Fridays listed Oct. 16 as its last date, the Gatherings on The Green market listed Oct. 18, and weekly tai chi ran through Oct. 26. Once those wrap up, November is a good time to try the newer restaurants on an ordinary weeknight.

Two Dunwoody dates later in the month are close enough to pair with dinner at High Street:

1. Sunday, Nov. 15: Light Up Dunwoody at Donaldson-Bannister Farm. It starts at 2 p.m., and the Christmas tree, menorah and farmhouse lightings are at 6 p.m.
2. Sunday, Nov. 22: Dunwoody Village Holiday Celebration and Lantern Parade at 5521 Chamblee Dunwoody Road, 3 to 6:30 p.m. The lantern parade steps off at 5:45 p.m., and the tree lighting follows at 6:15 p.m.

Both lightings end by about 6:30 p.m., which leaves plenty of evening. Varuni Napoli, Velvet Taco and Puttshack are a short drive from either.

When you're ready to talk about how High Street's next phase and the Perimeter Parkway streetscape figure into your own home's story, Shannon Cartrett can walk you through it over coffee, maybe at Rosetta. Request a free consultation and home valuation, and we'll look at what's changing near you, block by block.