Following delay, Cascade Heights commercial hub is all systems go

A redevelopment idea called The Point at Cascade made waves two years ago, promising to reinvigorate a highly visibly, triangle-shaped parcel amid the commercial nucleus of historic Cascade Heights.

For the last year, however, it’s been crickets where Cascade Road meets Benjamin E. Mays Drive. But that was by design, according to Shea Embry, co-owner and developer of the project.

In 2017, Embry put work on The Point At Cascade on hold to hire consultants and prepare an application in hopes of establishing the Cascade Heights Commercial Historic District—a multi-block zone comprised of commercial structures, office buildings, gas stations, civic buildings, churches, and multifamily residential.

“After over a year of work, the district is approved,” Embry wrote to Curbed Atlanta in an email this week.

The Cascade hub joins seven other places and structures—including Atlanta’s Central Library and M.C. Kiser Company Building downtown, the English Avenue School, and the East Atlanta neighborhood—recently added to the Georgia Register of Historic Places.

The group’s board is charged with evaluating Georgia nominations before they’re submitted to the National Park Service for National Register of Historic Places listing.

With the historic designation in the rearview, Embry said much progress will happen at The Point within the next month.

In that timeframe, expect BUZZ Coffee and Winehouse to open; Mocha Pops will near its debut; Barlow’s Barber Shop, the longest running black-owned business in Southwest Atlanta, per Embry, will move back into a renovated space; ELEVATE murals will pop up around Cascade Heights, including on The Point building; and a business called Live Fresh Artisanal Market will begin construction.

Embry also expects to announce the development’s anchor restaurant tenant within the next month.

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The Georgia National Register Review Board noted how the newly minted historic district has been Cascade Heights’s spiritual, social, and commercial center since the 1930s.

“The district illustrates changing tastes, needs, and uses over a period of time,” wrote the board, “spanning streetcar and early automobile subdivision development to completely auto-centric suburban growth in Atlanta.”