Now Open: A look inside Ponce City Market

ATLANTA — A complete overhaul years in the making hit a milestone this week. Ponce City Market is open for business as a shopping destination. It’s the first full week of business for “Binders,” an art supply store.

However this opening is about more than one store. It’s about the hope for a neighborhood.

Inside Binders new Old Fourth Ward store you see the vision of Ponce City Market actualized. The former Sears garage now sells oils for painting, along with all sorts of art supplies.

What its opening represents here is really “the dream is finally happening,” according to developer Jim Irwin.

The dream opening next? Suzuki School.

“We are a Montessori school with a twist,” said Courtney May.

Color changing elevator floors and a solar garden partly powering the school are waiting for 130 pre-schoolers, starting in September.

“I really think it’s going to be the heart of this side of town,” May said.

With apartments and office buildings opening this fall, one word sums up Ponce City Market: “finally.”

“Obviously we have been under construction for just about three years, so this is a huge milestone for us,” Irwin said.

To people living early these opening days for shoppers bring safer nights to the neighborhood.

“We think that additional activity level will make a huge difference in improving the neighborhood,” said Kit Sutherland of the Fourth Ward Alliance.

Dancing Goats Coffee Shop, a popular spot in Decatur, opened another cafe in Ponce City Market a few weeks back. The office building opening with 200 employees on September 22 comes the same day as a fleet of food truck vendors.