[EXCLUSIVE] With New Retailers Open, Northeast Plaza Looks to Land New Dining Options, Too

A Brookhaven shopping center that recently added a pair of national retailers is now looking to add new restaurants, too.  Northeast Plaza - 3307 Buford Highway - which first opened in 1957 and has over the years evolved several times, is now in the midst of its latest evolution.

Once home to Colonial and Kroger grocery stores as well as F.W. Woolworth, J.C. Penney Jr. and W.T Grant, all notable names of a bygone era, the center today is owned by Brixmor, a New York-based REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust), and is attracting new national names to the legacy intown center.  

Burlington debuted a new store in October, followed by Five Below earlier this month.  A new location of america's best, which showcased the eyeglasses and contacts company's newest logo and store design, also recently opened in the center in a space that was in the 90s home to Movie Gallery.  (Fun Fact: america's best, owned by National Vision Holdings, Inc, spans more than 1,000 locations, is publicly traded, and is based in Duluth.)  

Now, with the retail mix improving, and existing restaurants like Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, rebuilding and renovating, respectively, a new Panda Express is being planned for an outparcel of the center.  The new Panda Express would be built at 3733 Buford Highway, where it would replace a freestanding building most recently home to J. Buffalo Wings before the wing spot relocated last year to an inline space within the center previously home to a coin laundry.  The restaurant building is likely recognizable to many longtime residents as originally being a Long John Silver's.  

Planning documents submitted to the City of Brookhaven suggest the would-be Panda Express property is about .7 of an acre, with the new restaurant expected to measure about 2,500 square feet with a drive-thru.   

The California-based chain is most well known for mall food courts where it got its start, and has been a mainstay for decades, but the company has a growing presence in freestanding, drive-thru buildings, too.  Metro Atlanta is already home to several freestanding Panda Express restaurants including those on Memorial Drive in Stone Mountain, LaVista Road in Tucker, Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth, Roswell Road in Marietta, and Spring Road in Smyrna. 

In addition to the planned Panda Express, Brixmor is looking to redevelop a current gas station and convenience store as well as an older self-serve car wash behind it into a new multi-tenant building that they expect would include a medical office as well as a restaurant.  

Planning documents suggest the multi-tenant parcel - 3729 Buford Highway - also measures about .7 acres with the new building expected to be 5,600 square feet (3,350 medical office and 2,250 restaurant.) 

A freestanding Wendy's that closed in May 2024 at 3383 Buford Highway, just north of the proposed Panda Express, remains vacant and available and is not part of the upcoming redevelopment.  

Are you excited for the changes at Northeast Plaza?  What other shops or restaurants would you like to see open in Northeast Plaza? What is your earliest memory of Northeast Plaza?

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