The October 29 Countdown: How The Boardwalk, A Tunnel, And Medley Rewrite The Johns Creek Weekend

For a decade, the stretch of Johns Creek Parkway between Medlock Bridge Road and McGinnis Ferry Road was something residents drove past, not to. Two mid-rise office buildings, a State Farm campus, and a lot of asphalt. On October 29, 2026, that same intersection becomes the front door of a $560 million district that, by design, you're supposed to walk into.

Here is the part most residents have not yet clocked: Medley is not the story by itself. The story is the order in which Johns Creek built its Town Center. The city put the pond, the boardwalk, and the pedestrian tunnel in the ground first, then invited the retail to fill in around them. That sequencing is why the fall you are about to have will feel different from the strip-mall openings you have lived through before.

The move most residents have not noticed

Every North Atlanta suburb has watched a private developer drop a lifestyle center onto a green field and hope traffic followed. Johns Creek ran the play backward. The 20-acre park behind City Hall opened its pond loops to the public first. The Town Center Stream Restoration and Trail, a 10-foot ADA-compliant path connecting McGinnis Ferry Road to the Boardwalk site, wrapped before Medley's tenants had drywall. The $6.5 million pedestrian tunnel under State Route 141 broke ground in November 2024, well ahead of any restaurant's opening date.

The effect is subtle but important. By the time Trader Joe's and Shake Shack unlock their doors this fall, the surrounding infrastructure will already be a habit for people who live nearby. That is a very different starting condition than a cold-open shopping center trying to manufacture foot traffic from scratch.

Three openings, one district

The autumn calendar is really three overlapping ribbon cuttings. Here is what lands when.

The Boardwalk's north and south pond areas are already accessible; the amphitheater, terraced seating, and pedestrian plazas are the summer-2026 additions. The park's 15-foot elevated trail runs roughly a mile from Johns Creek Parkway to McGinnis Ferry Road, with a half-mile North Pond loop for a shorter walk. It doubles as a regional stormwater facility, which is the unglamorous reason the constructed wetlands exist at all.

What actually opens at Medley

The retail component is 164,000 square feet, about 78% leased as of mid-April 2026 with 37 executed leases. The tenant mix is unusually deliberate for a suburban project. Toro Development Company, run by Avalon veteran Mark Toro, has been open about turning down category duplicates in favor of what leasing chief Kimberly Goetz has called "A-players in every category." What that produced, grouped by how you would actually use it:

Grocery and everyday

• Trader Joe's, confirmed February 2026, likely to become the district's daily-traffic anchor
• Summit Coffee, the North Carolina roaster's fourth Georgia location
• Five Daughters Bakery, the Nashville shop known for its 100-layer doughnut, first location outside the Perimeter

Sit-down dining

• STIR, a Chattanooga cocktail bar and scratch kitchen anchoring the Plaza at 6,000 square feet, with an adjacent 1,000-square-foot walk-up bar called Tonic House opening onto the greenspace
• Fadó Irish Pub, the first suburban Fadó
• CRÚ Food & Wine Bar
• 26 Thai Kitchen and Bar
• Northern China Eatery, the beloved Doraville and BeltLine spot making its first OTP jump
• Tabla, an indoor-outdoor bar concept
• Fogón and Lions, restaurateur Julio Delgado's Spanish-Latin menu
• Minnie Olivia, the Neo-Neapolitan pizzeria's second location after Alpharetta

Fast-casual and grab-and-go

• Shake Shack
• CT Cantina & Taqueria at 11650 Johns Creek Parkway, the brand's sixth location
• Lily Sushi Bar
• Knuckies Hoagies
• Playa Bowls
• The Nest Café, Hollow Oak, 13 Hub Lane

Sweets

• Amorino, the Parisian gelato shop, second Atlanta location
• Cookie Fix, first Georgia store

Retail and wellness

• Sephora, Warby Parker, Drybar Shops, Moop's Boutique, Burdlife (first Georgia store for the Texas-born permanent jewelry shop), Sugarcoat Beauty, AYA Medical Spa, Kontour Medical Spa, BODY20, Pause Studio, Clean Your Dirty Face

Atlanta contemporary artist Greg Mike, founder of ABV Agency & Gallery, is leading a property-wide public art program of murals, sculptures, and installations. The Plaza is programmed for roughly 200 events a year, from outdoor wellness classes to live music and film nights.

The tunnel is the sleeper story

If you had to pick one project whose completion changes weekday behavior the most, it is not Medley. It is the $6.5 million arch culvert under Medlock Bridge Road.

Anyone who has tried to cross SR 141 on foot at Johns Creek Parkway knows why. Six lanes, high posted speeds, and a signalized crossing that pedestrians treat as a suggestion. The tunnel, modeled on the arch culvert underpass at Stone Mountain Park, connects Creekside Park on the east side directly to the retail and restaurants on the west side. No dodging traffic, no waiting on a walk signal, no argument about whether the kids can bike over.

That single piece of infrastructure is what makes a Saturday morning coffee at Summit and an afternoon at the pond feel like the same trip rather than two separate errands. It is also why Johns Creek Parkway itself is being narrowed from four lanes to two with on-street parking, and why the Lakefield Drive intersection is becoming a roundabout. The design intent is to slow the corridor down enough that people forget it was ever a commuter road.

A Saturday you could not have had last October

Here is what the loop looks like when everything is open. Start at the North Pond overlook behind City Hall for a walk on the 15-foot elevated boardwalk. Duck under Medlock Bridge Road through the new tunnel. Coffee at Summit, a bagel at Five Daughters, or brunch at STIR on the Plaza. Errands at Trader Joe's, a Warby Parker eye exam, a stop at Sephora. Lunch at Northern China Eatery or Little Rey. Loop back across the Plaza to catch a set at the Boardwalk amphitheater in the afternoon.

None of those individual stops is revolutionary. What is new is that they string together on foot in under a mile, without ever getting back in the car. That is the "Third Place" language Toro Development uses in its marketing, and it is a fair description of what the sequencing was actually engineered to produce.

What changes past opening weekend

Phase 2, called Encore, broke ground April 14, 2026. It adds 408 more apartments and 20,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. The 150-key boutique hotel, developed and operated by Mainsail, is scheduled for 2028. In the office component, Boehringer Ingelheim is taking more than 70,000 square feet as the animal health company's new U.S. headquarters, bringing close to 500 employees to the district.

The ripple effects were already showing up before opening day. Boston Scientific's Johns Creek life sciences facility, adjacent to Medley, opened in 2025 with plans to bring more than 300 employees to the area. A half mile away, Emory Johns Creek Hospital received approval to more than double its hospital and medical office space over the next 20 years; two floors are already added to the hospital, three to the Physicians Plaza, plus a new 640-space parking deck. Dutch Bros opened at 9630 Medlock Bridge Road in July 2025. The Rogers Bridge Road and Bell Road trail connection to Cauley Creek Park, the city's 203-acre park that opened in 2023, is complete.

For a resident, the meaningful shift is not any one of these projects. It is that Johns Creek finally has a defined center of gravity, and every subsequent decision, from the new fire station at 9880 Brumbelow Road to Abbotts Bridge Road's $34.6 million update, is being made in relationship to it.

Mark the date, then walk it

October 29 is going to be a busy Wednesday. If you have not walked the Boardwalk yet, the North Pond loop is a good soft opening for yourself before opening day; it is accessible from the path to the left of the City Hall front entrance, open 6 a.m. to midnight. When the tunnel and the amphitheater come online this summer, take the full loop once with fresh eyes. It will change how you think about the corner of Johns Creek Parkway and McGinnis Ferry Road for the next twenty years.

If you are curious about how the Town Center build-out is shaping property patterns in the neighborhoods surrounding it, or you want a thoughtful read on your own address before the fall rush, Taylor Thompson is happy to talk it through. Schedule a consultation and we will walk the district together.