Where people make the place.
Where people make the place.
A relaxing stroll on your coffee break, shaded by trees. A spontaneous afternoon out that trawls from the park to dinner to the bookstore. Out the doors of the stunning work campuses, the Perimeter district stretches across three cities that contain thousands of stories...
Heart of Perimeter is a video series about the people who live, work, and build here.
In this community, unique opportunities and people building their own legacies abound.
Don't just take our word for it - meet a few people from the neighborhood.
Business
Tim Stutz
Insight Global
In 2003, Insight Global was a two-year-old company operating out of a small Perimeter office that Tim Stutz, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, describes as "Class C, maybe even Class D." What it lacked in polish, it made up for in potential. Tim saw it and signed on.
"I was the 12th employee," he says. "I started in 2003 and today we've got between 1300 and 1400 employees."
That growth didn't happen by accident. For Tim, it comes back to one thing: culture.
"We very much believe that culture is a causation for success. A big part of bringing that culture to life is the spaces that people work in."
In 2020, Insight Global made their move into Twelve24 on Hammond Drive, a flagship address right in the heart of Perimeter, next door to Perimeter Mall and across from State Farm. When they needed more room for training and development, they didn't look far. Insight Global expanded to Campus 244 just steps away, creating a connected campus where the team could move between buildings and stay rooted in the same neighborhood that raised them.
It's a decision that reflects a broader pattern. Atlanta’s Perimeter submarket now accounts for 20% of all office leasing activity across Atlanta, more than any other submarket in the city. Companies are choosing to plant their flags here, and companies already here are deepening their roots. Insight Global is doing both.
For Tim, none of that is a surprise. He's watched this district evolve alongside his own company for over two decades, seen the restaurants multiply, the mixed-use developments take shape, the neighborhood become something worth staying for.
"I could see where, if you're considering putting your business in the Atlanta area, the Perimeter is a great choice."
Chef
Ashkan Famili
Yalda
Ashkan Famili learned the restaurant business from the inside out. Everything he knows, he built himself.
"I started as a doorman at restaurants and worked my way up to become a server, bartender, manager," Ashkan says. "I opened my first restaurant when I was 22 years old."
That foundation—built on years of watching, learning, and doing—eventually led him to Perimeter, and to Yalda, the Persian and Middle Eastern restaurant that he has been growing ever since.
Yalda’s name comes from the ancient winter solstice festival, the longest night of the year in the Persian calendar, a time for gathering with loved ones over food, poetry, and good company. The concept is personal. The menu draws from his own family recipes and the food traditions of his childhood in Iran, trained and refined during a decade working alongside some of Atlanta's most respected restaurateurs.
He spotted the location on a drive past the Aria development near Mercedes-Benz headquarters. Ashkan remembers seeing the space, the community surrounding it, and thinking of Yalda right away. Perimeter's diversity was a big part of the draw. This was a neighborhood, he felt, that would be open to something new.
The timing was right, too. Perimeter's dining scene has exploded in recent years, with 44 new restaurant openings in Dunwoody alone last year.
"We want you to feel like you're here in Perimeter Sandy Springs, but you're also transported to somewhere in the Middle East or Eastern Europe," Ashkan says.
Yalda opened in Sandy Springs to a full house and hasn't slowed down since. A second location followed in West Midtown. The seed has taken root.
"The people around here have just been really, really great to us," Ashkan says. "We're very appreciative of the community that allowed us to become successful."
Community
Community
Julia & Greg Frament
Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody
Feel at Home in Perimeter
On a typical Tuesday night in Perimeter, community spaces are bustling. According to the 2025 Perimeter Community survey, forty percent of workers now stick around after hours, and a third spend time here on their days off. Restaurants are packed, the festivals draw crowds, and chances are you’ve already spotted Julia and Greg Frament somewhere in the mix.
The couple has put down real roots in Perimeter, and they’ve leaned into the community the way you only do when a place genuinely earns it. Restaurant openings, the Cherry Blossom Festival, the International Festival. They were there for the opening of Hampton Social. They made it to Dunwoody’s popular Lemonade Days. Through their social media platform Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody, they have made it something of a mission to show off what this corner of Atlanta has become.
"There is never a shortage of things to do," Greg says.
And the data backs him up: 85% of Perimeter residents and workers agree the district offers great dining options according to results from the 2025 Perimeter Community Survey. Last year, 44 new restaurants opened in Dunwoody alone.
What Greg loves most is being able to walk between all of it. Dinner, shopping, whatever’s on that night. No car, no detour. Just the neighborhood doing what a good neighborhood does. It’s a sentiment echoed across the district: in 2025, residents were 20% more likely than two years prior to call Perimeter a walkable neighborhood.
Community in Perimeter
Community in Perimeter
Julia puts the whole thing more simply.
“I come for the nine to five,” she says. “I stay for the five to nine.”
Connectivity
Veronica
Lopez-Delgado
A One-Car, Two-Bike Family
Both Veronica Lopez-Delgado and her husband have bikes, but they recently upgraded hers to a cargo bike so she can take their two kids to school, daycare, and back, plus family trips to the park after work. The bike lanes and trails around Perimeter allow her to get to school, work, and several spots for recreation—the trail in Two Bridges Park is a family favorite.
“One of the reasons we felt it was possible to get this bike and be a one-car family is that there’s more and more bike lanes all over the Perimeter area,” said Veronica. “They make it easy to get around, and it’s been really nice to have that growth.”
The benefits of getting around via cargo bike are many: regular fresh air and exercise, saving money on gas and car maintenance, and being able to talk with her kids and enjoy the neighborhood from a closer point of view.
“The fact that we can ride our bike and see people we know is a really lovely thing,” said Veronica. “It’s like our nice, friendly little pocket of Atlanta.”
Doug Nagy
A De-Stressing Train Ride
One of the perks of Doug Nagy’s job at IHG is that it’s close to the MARTA Red line, allowing him to take a job outside of his Midtown Atlanta neighborhood without having to worry about moving. Another one is the Ravinia shuttle that runs from Dunwoody MARTA station right to his office. Like many other employers in Perimeter, IHG is attracting talent because of their office’s accessibility.
“Other offices are so far from the center of the city, young talent would have to move or purchase a vehicle to accept those jobs. That’s the nice thing about Perimeter and all the jobs there,” said Doug. “They’re very accessible to those of us that live in the city.”
Doug has found that riding MARTA allows him to use commute time for relaxing or catching up on work emails. Compared to driving, it can also make his travel back home take less time. Since he does not spend money on gas or car maintenance, the train and shuttle rides keep more paycheck in his pocket and more stress at bay.
Arts &
Culture
Natalie DeLancey
Broadway-Style Shows
in the Heart of Perimeter
City Springs Theatre Company has been entertaining Atlanta metro audiences since 2018, and Natalie DeLancey has been there since the beginning. Under her leadership, first as managing director and now as executive director, the theatre company has become nationally recognized for its high-caliber performance and a key feature of the City Springs community hub.
Natalie, who has received a number of local and regional awards for leadership and was inducted into the Georgia Theatre Hall of Fame in 2024, says their venue, Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center’s 1,000-seat Byers Theatre, is the perfect home for the company’s Broadway-style musicals. Respondents to the 2025 Perimeter Community survey asked for more live performances, and City Springs delivers them, from Les Misérables to Mean Girls.
“Residents are traveling right here to the Perimeter area to see Broadway-quality productions,” Natalie says.
Between the live-work-play setup and the convenience of direct public transit access on MARTA, Natalie loves that it’s easy for residents and visitors alike to catch a show or participate in the company’s teaching program, the Conservatory, which offers private lessons, weekly classes, a college prep course, a pre-professional company, an annual summer musical for high school students, and an award-winning competition team.
Even when the lights are off in the Byers Theatre, the City Springs campus stays busy, with monthly events, farmers markets, movie nights, restaurants and more. As Chair of the Greater Perimeter Chamber, Natalie knows the value of having a beautiful complex at the heart of Perimeter that offers no shortage of entertainment.
As she says, “There are parks. There are fountains. There are plenty of things to do, dine, and see a show.”
Alan Mothner
Creating Community in Perimeter Through the Arts
From a small painting class held in a church basement to a vibrant nonprofit community arts organization that provides over 800 visual arts classes annually to more than 5,000 students of all ages and skill levels, the Spruill Center for the Arts has grown into a hub of arts and culture in Dunwoody over the last 50 years. If you ask Spruill’s chief executive officer, Alan Mothner, what draws in people from across the Metro Atlanta area, he’ll tell you the social connections people make at the Spruill Center are unique—with students in each class becoming like family.
Alan credits their central location—right at 285 and 400—as key to making those connections possible. For those forty percent of workers who stay in Perimeter after hours, the Spruill Center is the perfect spot to find after-work recreation and community, especially combined with Perimeter’s many shopping and dining options.
“It’s really a one-stop place, not only for arts and culture,” says Alan, “but for entertainment as well.”
Creating community through the arts is a passion of Alan’s, who founded Create Dunwoody before joining the Spruill Center, and it’s central to the Spruill Center’s mission: “Our mission is to foster creativity and social connections through the arts,” says Alan.
Ready-to-use kilns at the Spruill Center.
Ready-to-use kilns at the Spruill Center.
Spruill is making connections even beyond those who attend their classes, as anyone who has traveled Ashford Dunwoody Road past the Spruill Gallery may have seen a vibrant mural on display, part of the organization’s annual creative placemaking project. This touch of culture and community in the middle of a busy area is just one of many ways the Spruill Center is connecting people, and their influence is nothing short of impressive.
“Today,” says Alan, “we reach over 15,000 people a year through the arts.”
Arts & Culture in Perimeter
Arts & Culture in Perimeter
Events & Placemaking
Rosemary Watts
Create Dunwoody
When Rosemary Watts sees brightly colored lion dancers weaving around visitors or families hula-hooping on the Ashford Lane Lawn, she can’t help but remember what the area used to look like—just your basic shopping center; a street with parking, but no activity. “People just came in and out,” she says.
As a Dunwoody resident for 29 years and executive director of Create Dunwoody, Rosemary has witnessed and been a part of the transformations on Ashford Lane and around Perimeter.
“What we’re trying to do is bring people to these areas now that are just brand new,” she says.
“These are places that people can gather, and be a community, and see each other.”
Beautiful gathering spaces are great, but Rosemary knows that, on their own, they’re not enough to bring people to Perimeter.
"We need a reason for them to get together.”
That’s where Create Dunwoody comes in. Whether it’s a celebration of Holi, a door decorating contest, a Black History Month cultural festival, or any of the other events they bring to the venues and greenspaces around Dunwoody, Rosemary and her team are creating diverse arts and cultural experiences that complement the area’s vibrant shopping and dining scene, giving visitors to the area a reason to linger longer than they used to.
Rosemary explains her organization this way:
“Create Dunwoody is an organization that strives to use arts and culture for economic development and community involvement.”
Ultimately, it’s about highlighting the kinds of things that make Rosemary proud of her city and, as she says, “showing off all the wonderful things we have going on here.”
Nikki Washington
Perimeter Connects
Nikki Washington thinks a lot about how to connect people. For four years, Nikki has worked with the Perimeter Community Improvement Districts (Perimeter CIDs). And for her, it’s not just about making Perimeter a thriving business district.
“We want to see Perimeter grow as a place that’s more than just a business district,” says Nikki. “We want it to be a place where people want to spend time.”
As program manager of Perimeter CIDs' Perimeter Connects, a Transportation Management Association that includes Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, and Brookhaven, GA, making it easy for people to get to the Perimeter District is a big part of Nikki’s job.
Responses to the 2025 Perimeter Community Survey demonstrated that shorter commutes matter to workers in Perimeter.
“One of the reasons that the Perimeter district is so great is that we have three transit stations within our boundaries and a fourth just outside—Medical Center, Sandy Springs, and Dunwoody Station, and then North Springs just north of us—so it’s great accessibility for the community,” says Nikki.
It’s more than just transit though. For Nikki, who bikes or walks to work most days, and spends time outside of work on her bike too, using people’s commute time to build community just makes sense. So she hosts annual events and contests that connect workers during Transit Month and Biketober and brings together workers who might otherwise drive to Perimeter alone through the Rapid Ride vanpool program.
It’s a role that fits Nikki well.
“I’ve always really wanted my job to contribute to making the world a better place,” she says. “I think that a huge part of that is making communities better on a really human level. And I think that at the Community Improvement Districts, we’re doing that.”
Events & Placemaking in Perimeter
Events & Placemaking in Perimeter
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