College Square's First Holiday Season Starts November 21. Here's What Downtown Athens Built It For.
When Nick Alliston was a UGA freshman, College Avenue still carried cars from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway to Broad Street. A year later, the block started turning into outdoor seating so people could eat outside during the pandemic. As WUGA reported in October, Alliston now runs Sunroof Coffee on the same stretch. It's called College Square now, with metal tables, planters along the edges and big shade sails overhead.
The rebuilt square had its grand opening on Oct. 24. Its first holiday event is the Downtown Athens Holiday Stroll on Saturday, Nov. 21. On that day the square works as a front door to downtown. You pick up a passport, hear some music and can get gifts wrapped there, and then you walk out to the shops on the surrounding blocks.
The block between East Broad and East Clayton streets first closed to traffic as a temporary pedestrian plaza during the pandemic, Flagpole noted in its grand-opening coverage. For years it worked as overflow seating on worn pavement. The current project was approved by the Athens-Clarke County Mayor and Commission on Nov. 6, 2024, according to the Red & Black.
Rebuilding it meant clearing the block first. "Phase One is going to be jarring," David Lynn, director of planning and outreach for the Athens Downtown Development Authority, told Flagpole in January. "It's going to be a complete demolition." The plan called for the first phase to replace the asphalt with brick pavers and swap the old trees for new mature ones. Later phases would focus on the sidewalks within 12 feet of the buildings, and SPLOST project manager Diana Jackson said crews would split that sidewalk work into small sections so they could finish in front of one business and move on to the next.
The original schedule called for the plaza to open before UGA's first home football game on Sept. 5 and to be fully finished by October 2026. The ribbon was cut on Oct. 24, at a daylong celebration called SquareFest. It ran vendors and children's activities from 1 to 4 p.m. and ended with a free 7 p.m. concert by the '90s tribute band Better Than Better Than Ezra.
The businesses on College Avenue stayed open the whole time, behind fences and detour signs. Ansley Guntermann, a server at The Grill for six years, described the slowdown to WUGA:
"We saw a lull. People weren't sure if the businesses were open. A lot of times, they had signs at the beginning of the sidewalk that said the sidewalk was closed. It was just a small portion, but people didn't know that they could come down this way."
Sunroof Coffee opened its downtown shop in March, about a month after construction began. It was the company's second location. Alliston told WUGA that opening in the middle of construction probably hurt them more than he realized at the time, even though they "still did well enough."
Now that the fences are down, the people working there describe a different block. Cara Worley at Dress Up Boutique told WUGA the new square has helped the store's social media, because they can take photos there instead of in front of "beat up concrete and streets." Maddie Ward, another server at The Grill, said she has noticed more people walking through and more business since the plaza opened.
Foot traffic was the goal from the start. The Red & Black lists three project goals. The first is to improve connections between all modes of transportation and link downtown businesses, open space and neighborhoods.
The finished block was designed with specific uses in mind. According to the Red & Black's report on the project, those include:
To support them, the plaza has new lighting, new tables and chairs, benches, overhead shade sails and large trees. ADDA paid for most of the roughly $6.5 million through financing and parking revenue, and the 2023 TSPLOST was slated to provide $500,000. The project's own site, athenscollegesquare.com, has more detail.
WUGA called SquareFest the first special event in the new College Square and reported that minor improvements will continue into early 2027. So the square is open and in use, with finishing work still coming.
The Downtown Athens Holiday Stroll is ADDA's first downtown-wide holiday open house. It runs from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 21, and it's free. Its slogan, "SHOP. SIP. EXPLORE.," describes how the day is laid out. College Square is "Holiday HQ," and the activities there are listed as "Magic on the Square." Everything else happens at participating businesses around downtown. The event listing on Visit Athens describes the day like this:
The square also has the music. The lineup includes members of the Clarke Central and Cedar Shoals orchestras, Thingamajig, a band of graduates from Nuci's Space Camp Amped, and DJ De La Luna spinning records. Julie Powell Caldwell will perform holiday music around downtown. There's also a photo cutout by local artist Marisa Leilani Mustard.
Families with kids have one thing to do in advance. The "Secret Shoppe," where local artists help kids make gifts for friends and family, requires free registration through the K.A. Artist Shop website. Each hour is supervised, and the listing says registration is there to make sure each hour's craft is fun and safe.
If Nov. 21 doesn't work for you, passports still count for the scavenger hunt through the following week and weekend. Winners will be announced the first week of December.
Two other big holiday dates fall within a few weeks of the Stroll, and neither one happens on College Square.
On Saturday, Nov. 28, the Athens Farmers Market holds its Holiday Artist Market at Bishop Park, 705 Sunset Dr., from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The listing promises handmade goods, prepared food and produce.
On Thursday, Dec. 3, the Downtown Parade of Lights steps off at 7 p.m. at Hancock Avenue and Pulaski Street. Athens-Clarke County and ADDA present it, and it's free. The parade winds through downtown and ends with Santa lighting the Christmas tree in front of City Hall. It's a rain-or-shine event, though organizers can cancel if severe weather makes it unsafe. The county posts the route map at accgov.com/parade, and you can also call 706-613-3800 for details.
The tree lighting gives the area around City Hall its own small cluster of public space. The pocket park built on the former Costa Building parking lot, next door to City Hall, was called "newly opened" in Flagpole's AthFest guide in June. Back in January, Flagpole reported that the park was planned with a stage for musical performances. The Costa Building itself was renovated and now holds county government offices.
The Holiday Stroll is the first time ADDA is using the new square the way the Red & Black's project description laid it out: a public space that connects downtown businesses and draws people onto the surrounding blocks. Low Yo Yo, Rook & Pawn and Bear Hug Honey Company are passport pickup spots along with Holiday HQ. Sunroof Coffee, The Grill and Dress Up Boutique sit on the block that spent most of this year behind construction fences.
Markets, concerts and pop-ups are what the plaza was designed to host. Its first full holiday program starts at noon on Nov. 21 at Holiday HQ, between East Broad and East Clayton.
New public spaces like College Square change the blocks around them, and that can show up in what nearby homes are worth. If you own a home in Athens and want to know where yours stands this season, Platinum Key Realty of Georgia can tell you. Request a free home valuation, and we'll put local numbers behind the answer.
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