Less than a year since businesses began their staggered openings at Emory Point, the huge mixed-use development appears to be a right-place, right-time scenario. The area was hungry for affordable housing and retail options, as evidenced by these numbers: The first slate of Emory Point apartments — 443 of them — is 90 percent leased, and the overall retail component is 87-percent occupied, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports. Tenants like the General Muir restaurant are gaining national attention, and the interest from more retailers has been called overwhelming. So now Cousins Properties, Atlanta's largest real estate company, and Gables Properties are moving forward on the second of three phases — with eventual plans of building 1 million square feet across 15 acres. That got us wondering: Could Emory Point become a bona fide destination one day? Could it be Decatur's newer cousin?

Overall, the project is the first ground-up retail development in the Emory area in more than 20 years — and the largest private development to start ITP since the heart of the Great Recession. The $70 million second phase will add more than 300,000 square feet. It will include another 307 apartments and 42,000 additional square feet of retail. Developers and outside observers seem confident that space will be gobbled up as well. As one real estate official told the newspaper: "It was a totally under-supplied market."

· Second phase of Emory Point project to begin [Atlanta Business Chronicle]

· After Leasing Success, Emory Point's Phase II Coming [Curbed Atlanta]