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New in Atlanta

Atlanta is hot right now, And not because the change of seasons is finally warming things up. What was once a slow trickle of new museum, attraction and celebrity-chef-helmed restaurant openings has now become a deluge.

From the new College Football Hall of Fame, which is revolutionizing both the way people view college football and the concept of the hall of fame, to game-changing expansions at Zoo Atlanta and the Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta’s reasons to come to town are all kicking it up a notch.

In between attractions, groups can take advantage of a shiny new streetcar to shuttle visitors among all the top sites and a food hall to connect visitors directly with local up-and-coming food producers during their time in Atlanta.

 

Krog Street Market

Like many buildings in Atlanta, Krog Street Market has had many lives, but in this case, they may be even more colorful than most. The building was home to Atlanta Stoveworks for more than 100 years; once woodstoves went out of fashion, Hollywood came to town and turned it into a soundstage.

When movie producer Tyler Perry built himself a custom soundstage elsewhere, a set of developers saw an opportunity to create a new buzz around the iconic building.

“[They] looked at it as something that could revitalize a neighborhood that had already been changing for 10 or 15 years into something the community could use, as well as something that would bring people in from other parts of the city,” said property manager Scott Shackelford.

Though local food like hand-butchered meats at boutique charcuterie The Spotted Trotter and single-origin artisan candies at Xocolatl Small Batch Chocolate take center stage, shoppers can also find locally made crafts like all-natural body care products at Mama Handmade Bath and Body.

“There’s not something else like this in Atlanta, but there is a growing food hall movement in the U.S.,” said Shackelford. “We were careful with who we wanted to associate with the program. Here, when people come to visit, they see the chef behind the line or Robert Owens at his smoker at Grand Champion BBQ and feel like they can come up and talk to him.”

www.krogstreetmarket.com

 

Fernbank Museum of Natural History

Natural history museums have a somewhat paradoxical relationship with nature. They celebrate it, showcase it and educate visitors about it, but due to primarily indoor exhibit halls, they can only go so far in connecting visitors with what is happening in nature at the precise moment.

The Fernbank Museum plans to change all that with its new expansion scheduled to open in phases beginning in summer 2016.

“We’ve technically got two separate projects that combine to get people outdoors,” said Brandi Berry, the museum’s vice president of marketing and communications for the planned 75-acre museum expansion. “The 10 acres behind the museum used to be people’s backyards when the original row houses were purchased to create the museum, and over time, they’ve grown into a natural area.”

Interactive exhibits encouraging visitors to look at nature differently — both from different elevations on floating walkways and tree nets and with different senses at state-of-the-art sensory stations — will dot the five-story change in elevation in the 10-acre exhibit area.

The remaining 65 acres of Fernbank’s expansion are more nature than museum, with paths winding through an old-growth forest and little in the way of permanent man-made additions. Guided and self-guided walks, created in concert with the museum’s newly hired ecologist, will traverse the space.

www.fernbankmuseum.org

Gabi Logan

Gabi Logan is a freelance travel journalist whose work has also appeared in USA TODAY, The Dallas Morning News and Italy Magazine. As she travels more than 100,000 miles each year, she aims to discover the unexpected wonder in every destination.