The Lee+White management recently shared that—starting September 1st—the popular West End development will start charging for parking. The first two hours will remain free, 2-5 hours of parking will be $5, and 5-12 hours will be $10.
But for longtime residents, our minds were made up about parking for food and beverage establishments back in 2017 at Lean Draft House.
The original beloved BeltLine bar had a dozen private parking spaces and relied on street parking along Hopkins Street. But if the food and drinks hit just right, you didn’t drive—you leaned your way home on foot or by bike, cruising the trail like it was a neighborhood expressway to your door.
Kristen Koehnemann was a regular—part of a couple who’d meet friends for tacos and drinks at the bar. Today, Kristen lives just a few blocks away and often walks to Lee+White pushing a stroller. Like many families who’ve stayed in the neighborhood, she supported adding speed bumps on nearby streets to slow traffic and protect kids.
Her biggest concern now? Cars coming from the bars rarely stop—let alone slow down—at the Industrial/White Street intersection, the only protected crosswalk linking the residential area to Lee+White. For a site so close to MARTA, she wonders why more hasn’t been done to improve pedestrian access and support transit alternatives from the station, instead of adding barriers to those not arriving by car.
Meanwhile, Lee+White has grown into a regional destination. It’s a far cry from the days when Lean Draft House was the only popular bar, and the biggest crowd you might see topped out at a hundred neighbors—most of them walking home, no parking required.
RELATED: Read more Community Notebooks here.
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