The vacant Publix at Oglethorpe Crossing in Brookhaven may soon have a new tenant, and leasing materials point to a name that shoppers around Ashford Dunwoody Road have been hoping for: Trader Joe's. The specialty grocer is reportedly in the works to occupy a significant portion of the roughly 38,000-square-foot space at 3435 Ashford Dunwoody Road, with a footprint of about 18,000 square feet, according to leasing documents.
The report comes from Toneto Atlanta, which reviewed leasing materials indicating a new anchor would occupy the left portion of the former Publix, with a smaller shop, retail, or restaurant space potentially filling out the rest of the old grocery footprint. Publix closed that store on July 22, 2025, after operating there since 1996, and opened the same day in a larger, roughly 45,544-square-foot location a short distance away in Cambridge Square, according to Publix Super Markets. That move opened up prime anchor space at Oglethorpe Crossing, which Coro Realty Advisors owns.
A Familiar Playbook for the Landlord
Oglethorpe Crossing's owner, Coro, has run this kind of tenant swap before. The firm previously split a former Sprouts space into a Trader Joe's and a Books-A-Million at Chastain Market, according to Toneto Atlanta's reporting, and Coro purchased Oglethorpe Crossing back in 2011. If a Trader Joe's does land at the Brookhaven site, it would sit a little over four miles from the Chastain Park store at 4600 Roswell Road, roughly five miles from the Buckhead location at 3183 Peachtree Road, and a little more than five miles from the Sandy Springs store at 6277 Roswell Road, per the seed report's distance breakdowns.
The broader shuffle at Cambridge Square and Oglethorpe Crossing traces back even further. Kroger closed its longtime Cambridge Square store in August 2020 after 19 years in business, citing declining sales, which left developer Regency Centers with a vacancy it eventually filled five years later by luring Publix across the street, according to Tomorrow's News Today - Atlanta. Georgia remains Publix's second-largest state market, with 219 locations as of mid-2025, trailing only its home base of Florida, which holds nearly 900 stores, per the same outlet's reporting.
Why Trader Joe's Stays Quiet
As with every prospective Trader Joe's site, confidentiality clauses complicate confirmation. Trader Joe's requires strict confidentiality from landlords and leasing representatives, per Toneto Atlanta, and similar non-disclosure terms have surfaced elsewhere in metro Atlanta. In Decatur, the AMLI Market Square agreement names Trader Joe's among examples of a qualifying grocery store.
That silence is playing out at Decatur's AMLI Market Square project too, where the Decatur Downtown Development Authority approved a $13 million tax incentive package for AMLI's $144 million development, contingent on landing a “Qualified Grocery Store” operating at least 200 locations nationwide — a category the agreement explicitly named as including Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and Sprouts. Hoodline previously reported on the Baby Kroger site’s revival, where infrastructure work and site clearing began this month at the former Colonial-built grocery site, built in the 1960s and closed in late 2022. That project calls for 358 apartments and a roughly 14,500-square-foot grocery space, with first move-ins targeted for late 2028, according to Urbanize Atlanta.
An Aggressive Expansion Across Metro Atlanta
Trader Joe's has been on a tear locally. The chain reported seeking as many as six new metro Atlanta stores back in 2024, per Toneto Atlanta, and has since opened locations in Chastain Park, Alpharetta's Halcyon, Peachtree City's Avenue development, and Johns Creek's Medley. That last store, a 9,240-square-foot location, opened June 11 and hired more than 30 local employees alongside area transfers, Hoodline reported at the time in coverage of the chain’s Johns Creek debut.
Trader Joe's first arrived in metro Atlanta in October 2006 and opened six area stores through 2008, later adding an Athens location in 2010 and more metro stores in late 2024. The company now operates more than 500 stores nationwide. The former Decatur Baby Kroger site also had ties to Harris Teeter and A&P, according to the seed report's background on that site.
For now, though, nothing about the Brookhaven site is official. As with the Decatur project, confirmation from Trader Joe's itself typically doesn't arrive until much closer to a store's actual opening.
