Drive up Roswell Road past Hightower Trail on the first Thursday of the month this fall and you will see two things happening within a few hundred yards of each other. In the parking lot at River Springs Shopping Center, folding tables go up under string lights, and by 5 p.m. more than thirty local farmers, food producers, and artisans set out bread, produce, and handmade goods for the Sandy Springs Night Market, a brand-new evening market the city launched on September 3. A short stretch up the same road, at the old North River Shopping Center, crews have been tearing down what used to be a Stars and Strikes bowling alley, clearing ground for a $150 to $200 million mixed-use project that will eventually bring 336 apartments, 85 for-sale townhomes, new restaurants, and a public park to a site that has sat mostly empty for a decade.
One of these is a pop-up. The other is the reason the pop-up finally makes sense.
Two signs on the same stretch of Roswell Road
For years, the story of Sandy Springs' North End has been a story about what wasn't there. At a North End mayoral forum in 2025, candidates traded blame over the lack of dining options and community gathering spaces near the Chattahoochee River and the city's border with Roswell. The North River Shopping Center, built in the late 1970s, spent most of the past decade more than half empty, its remaining tenants a Dollar General, a gaming store, a salon, and a liquor store scattered around large sections of demolished or vacant storefronts.
That changed in late August, when the Sandy Springs City Council approved a $4.3 million incentive package for Woodfield Development, the Charleston-based firm behind the North River redevelopment. The package waives roughly $1.775 million in the city's recreation impact and permit fees and pairs it with a 10-year property tax abatement worth about $2.55 million, approved by the Sandy Springs Development Authority in a special-called meeting on August 26. Sandy Springs Economic Development Director Chris Burnett called it the first major development project in the North End in decades. Woodfield is expected to close on the roughly eight of the site's 13 acres it has under contract this October, with construction beginning shortly after and running as long as three years.
The Night Market did not cause any of that. But it is the first piece of the North End's new chapter that residents can actually walk up to, buy a loaf of bread at, and judge for themselves. That is worth understanding on its own terms before we get to what is coming next door.
What the Night Market actually is
The Sandy Springs Night Market runs the first Thursday of September, October, and November, from 5 to 8 p.m., at River Springs Shopping Center, 8610 Roswell Road. If that address sounds familiar, it is because it sits right alongside two businesses most North End residents already know: Sandy Springs Diner at 8612 Roswell and Christian Brothers Automotive at 8630 Roswell. This is not a market built around a new development or a repositioned corner. It is happening at a shopping center residents already drive past for an oil change or a late breakfast.
The city describes the market as an extension of the Saturday morning Farmers Market at City Springs, which has run since 2010 and has been named a Best of Georgia winner three years running, 2023 through 2025. The Saturday market draws the produce-and-coffee crowd. The Thursday version is built for the after-work crowd, people who want to pick up dinner, browse a few handmade gift stalls, and be home by eight without giving up an entire Saturday morning. Two dates remain this fall, October 1 and November 5, both on the same Thursday-evening schedule.
It is worth being precise about what this is not. It is not a rebrand of Sundown Social, the city's other Thursday evening program that runs May through late October on City Green Plaza downtown, pairing live local music with lawn games and an outdoor bar. Sundown Social is a block party. The Night Market is a market. They happen on the same night of the week but in different parts of the city, and for the first time, the North End has a Thursday of its own instead of everyone driving south to City Springs for the evening.
| Sandy Springs Night Market | Sundown Social | Saturday Farmers Market | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Location | River Springs Shopping Center, 8610 Roswell Rd | City Green Plaza, downtown City Springs | City Springs, 1 Galambos Way |
| Day and time | First Thursday, 5-8 p.m. | Select Thursdays, 6-8 p.m., May-Oct | Saturdays, 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. |
| Format | 30+ vendors, produce and artisan goods | Live music, lawn games, outdoor bar | Weekly produce, baked goods, live music |
| Remaining 2026 dates | Oct. 1, Nov. 5 | Runs through Oct. 27 | Weekly through late fall |
Why the city waited this long
None of this is happening in a vacuum. The North River project's public park, a 0.71-acre space with two playgrounds, open turf, shaded seating, restrooms, and room for live music, is the piece the city has wanted for years and is why officials structured the incentive the way they did. The city's economic development department estimates its share of the incentives covers roughly two-thirds of the park's cost, which it puts at $6.5 million once land value, facilities, signage, and seventy parking spaces are counted. Those parking spots will be open to anyone visiting the park, not just apartment or townhome residents.
Woodfield's Patrick Kassin framed the investment as a bet on the North End specifically, saying the firm has tremendous confidence in Sandy Springs and is excited to make a long-term investment there. Mayor Rusty Paul described the approval as representing the vision the city has had for the North End for years. Whatever the politics behind those quotes, the practical version is simpler: a year after candidates at that same forum argued over why nothing had been built on this stretch of road, the city put real money behind a project designed to fix that, and construction is expected to start within weeks of this piece publishing.
The retail and restaurant space in the new development is comparatively small, about 10,000 square feet, so this is not going to instantly transform Roswell Road into a dining destination the way Avenue East Cobb or City Springs has downtown. But it is the first new commercial square footage the North End has seen added in a very long time, and it is arriving in the same season the city decided to test whether the North End wants its own Thursday night market. Those two facts sitting three weeks apart on the calendar is not a coincidence so much as a sign the city is finally treating the North End as a place worth programming, not just a stretch of road between the Chattahoochee and the Roswell city line.
What to actually do with this fall
If you live north of Hightower Trail, the practical calendar for the next two months looks like this. October 1 and November 5 are your remaining Night Market Thursdays, both 5 to 8 p.m. at River Springs Shopping Center. Go with an open list rather than a specific one. The lineup of thirty-plus vendors rotates week to week and the point of a market like this is picking up something you did not know you wanted, not checking off a shopping list.
If you also want the downtown side of the calendar, the Blue Stone Arts & Music Festival returns September 25 and 26 as a free, two-day event in its fourth year, with an artist market of more than sixty makers and a lineup that includes Grammy-nominated Allen Stone. Sundown Social continues on select Thursdays through October 27 at City Green Plaza if you want the concert-and-cornhole version of a Thursday evening instead of the market version.
And if you drive past North River Shopping Center and see the site further along in demolition than it was last week, that is expected. Woodfield's target for closing on the land is this October, with construction following soon after and running as long as three years before the apartments, townhomes, retail, and park are finished. The 700 temporary construction jobs the project is projected to create, plus another 30 to 45 permanent jobs once the retail and restaurants open, will be visible on that stretch of road well before any of it is move-in ready.
None of this changes what your Thursday looks like this week. But if you have wondered why a market at a shopping center you already know suddenly has string lights and thirty vendors, or why the old bowling alley down the road is finally coming down after sitting half-used for years, the answer is the same one: the North End's long stall just ended, and the Night Market is the part of that story you can walk up to with cash in your pocket.
If you are weighing a move within Sandy Springs, or just want a local read on what a neighborhood's rhythm actually looks like before you commit to a street, Sandra Daniels would love to talk it through. Let's connect.
