Inside East Lake’s Hosea + 2nd, a new adaptive-reuse village

Instead of wiping the slate clean, developers are enlivening tired commercial structures for an adaptive-reuse village where historic neighborhoods East Lake, Oakhurst, and Kirkwood converge. And it’s high time for a look inside the progress.

Earlier this week, the Hosea + 2nd project welcomed the debut of its second restaurant, Poor Hendrix, a laid-back pub and eatery from James Beard Award-nominated pastry chef Aaron Russell and wife Jamie. (Eater has menu details and more here.)

Next to that restaurant, two more culinary options should be built out and open by next spring, Jay Martin of ReDevStudio, a partner in Hosea + 2nd, tells Curbed Atlanta.

Those offerings include a venture by One Eared Stag chef Robert Phalen called Mary Hoopa’s House of Fried Chicken & Oysters (taking the larger corner space) and a second location of Grant Park’s Mix’d Up Burgers.

If all goes according to plan, the four restaurants will be only the beginning of this planned walkable hub for East Lake.

As seen in this overview of the intersection (below), the spaces under development now are at top left and bottom right. Developers are planning retail, office space, "residential units," a coffee shop, and at least one more restaurant for the intersection’s top right corner. Martin said construction could begin there in the spring. (The estimates in this graphic are a little dated).

Hosea + 2nd

Below are Google Maps images of the vacant properties in early 2015. The first structure is now a barbecue restaurant, and the other is being expanded and modernized into the three restaurants mentioned above.

Google Maps

Of the four initial sites, the last to be developed will likely be the southwest quadrant, where the Cousins Family Foundation plans to build offices and boutique retail, according to marketing materials. Construction, however, is expected to begin sooner than later.

The Cousins Family Foundation, an organization that's been working to revitalize East Lake since 1993, purchased the Hosea + 2nd land in 2005 and sold it last year to Clay Harper and Mike Nelson — owners of Fellini's Pizza and La Fonda Latina — along with partners Nathan Bolster and Martin.

And now for a look inside and around the Hosea + 2nd project today ...

• East Lake’s ‘Hosea + 2nd’ project has true mixed-use ambitions [Curbed Atlanta]