Full Circle Real Estate Group: Athens Real Estate, Sustainable Real Estate

If you haven't been by Ted's Most Best for pizza and a beer yet, stop what you are doing and head that way. Our friends and Boulevard neighbors, Jessica Greene (The Grit) and Jay Totty, recently opened their unique restaurant specializing in artisan pizza, panini, salads, homemade desserts, great beer and wine and espresso/cappuccino. They converted the old Snow Tire storage building at 254 W. Washington Street and recently won a preservation award for their adaptive reuse of the space. Full Circle Agent Katie Throne took some photos of the building's interior before it was remodeled and they are showcased inside Ted's. The restaurant has a great atmosphere, plenty of outdoor seating (which many downtown restaurants lack) and a bocce ball court, so visit them soon!

Heirloom Cafe and Fresh Market, another great adaptive reuse project, just opened in the Boulevard Historic District. You've probably read about the cafe in some of our previous blogs. The owner, Jessica Rothacker, rehabbed the old Amoco station at 815 N. Chase Street. You can read all about her endeavor and check out her menu at www.heirloomathens.com.

After gathering feedback from neighborhood residents and conducting surveys, the folks behind the proposal for a park in the Historic Boulevard neighborhood have revealed their concept plan.

You can see the plans for "Boulevard Woods" by clicking HERE. The plan has not been approved yet by Athens-Clarke County, but it would feature several things, including a neighborhood landmark, local art, crosswalks, bus shelter, play lawn, small amphitheatre, a wishing well, etc. All of the amenities are on the park website.

Park organizer, Dan Lorentz, said next steps include securing permission to use the site as a park, incorporating feedback from Athens-Clarke County into a final buildable park plan, developing a plan to build the park in phases, creating some form of county/neighborhood park partnership and demonstrating success in fundraising.

"Still, the concept plan is a big step forward. Everyone in the neighborhood owes thanks to our Design Team for developing an exciting yet practical plan that captures Boulevard’s spirit. There'll be more about next steps in the future," he said.

A local chef is rehabbing the old Amoco station at 815 N. Chase Street in the Boulevard neighborhood to open Heirloom Café & Fresh Market, a community-centered restaurant with a focus on sustainability and local food. The restaurant is set to open in late spring.

Heirloom is owned by Jessica Rothacker, a former sous chef at Farm 255 and pastry chef at Ike & Jane, and her father. Jessica has been passionate about food, specifically local food systems and sustainability for many years. She’s also a graduate of The Art Institute of Atlanta. Jessica is a board member of the local food activism non-profit PLACE, whose mission is to promote a strong accessible local food culture in Athens. During her time working with PLACE, Jessica has formed strong relationships with local growers and activists that would like to see the Athens food community thrive.

Jessica said it is Heirloom’s goal to become a community centered restaurant, focused on supporting the burgeoning local food community, preserving food traditions, and providing a high quality product and service in a neighborly environment.

Here’s the scoop from Jessica on the meaning behind the restaurant’s name and additional information about the concept and menu:

The Barber Street Park Project is almost ready to move on to the design phase. Volunteers have explored and documented the site, and now have a good sense of the design challenges ahead. But there's a little work from the initial clearing phase to finish up, and this mostly involves removing a large pile of bush honeysuckle that was generated during the first two volunteer works days.

Project leaders are looking for volunteers to help them move the bush honeysuckle pile at the Barber St. site this Sat. June 12 from 10am to 2pm. Other touch-up work includes keeping paths clear of vines. Some trash pick-up may also be necessary.

The Barber Street Park Project is a volunteer effort to design and build a neighborhood park here in Athens on an empty lot on Barber Street. Located at the top of Boulevard, the site is well positioned to serve as a neighborhood focal point and could easily be integrated into a future greenway network and/or a rails-to-trails project.

For more info about this project and to find out how you can get involved, check out Dan Lorentz's great blog HERE.

A local Blogger recently conducted a study on the walkability of Athens' neighborhoods using Walk Score. According to his study, Boulevard is the most walkable neighborhood and Cherokee Forest is the least. Click HERE to check out his study and see how your neighborhood stacked up!