FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. — A national grocer weighs household income, highway access and the development around a site before it commits to one. Whole Foods has now committed to south Forsyth, at Fuqua Development's Forsyth Town Center, and the developer's own numbers for the corridor show why. Crawford Lands, a Cumming land brokerage that has followed the project, puts the nearest existing Whole Foods about 10 miles south, at Avalon in Alpharetta.
The project
The store will anchor Forsyth Town Center, a mixed-use development by Fuqua Development at Ronald Reagan Boulevard and Peachtree Parkway, across from The Collection at Forsyth, according to Fuqua's project page.
The county's building permit for the store's building, BLDGCOMM-25-0587, describes 35,500 square feet of landlord shell work for a grocer tenant at 3135 Ronald Reagan Boulevard. The county issued it Sept. 30, 2025. The permit's record shows the shell passed its final building inspection Aug. 14, 2026, and its fire certificate of occupancy or completion Aug. 18. That covers the landlord's shell, not the store's interior.
The JLL 2025 “For Lease — Forsyth Town Center” flyer lists the center at 91,843 square feet of gross leasable area on a 35-acre site.
What the county records show about the store
- Signs. The county issued permits for the store's two Whole Foods Market wall signs, on the north entrance and the east side, on Sept. 24, 2026 (SIGN-26-0304 and SIGN-26-0305). A canopy sign permit was issued March 31, 2026, and a permit for a Whole Foods Market monument sign at the Peachtree Parkway entrance was issued June 9, 2026.
- Generator. An electrical permit issued Aug. 5, 2026, covers installing a Whole Foods 80-kilowatt generator (BLDGCOMM-26-0609).
- Interior bid. Bidding for the store's interior buildout closed April 8, 2026, according to a PlanHub listing that describes the interior buildout of a new shell for a Whole Foods grocery store.
None of these is an opening date.
Why this corridor works on paper
Fuqua's project page gives the corridor 147,544 residents and an average household income of $159,463 within five miles, both 2021 figures, with about 40,500 vehicles per day on Ronald Reagan Boulevard.
The JLL flyer, sourced to Esri 2024, gives a different set of figures: five-mile population 157,249 and average household income $187,070; three-mile population 54,922 and average household income $184,099; and one-mile population 4,321 with average household income $166,377. It lists median ages of 39.3, 38.6 and 40.3 for those areas.
The two sets shouldn't be blended into one profile. Fuqua's are the developer's figures from 2021; JLL's are a leasing broker's Esri pull from 2024. Both describe a high-income, high-traffic trade area.
More than a grocery store
County records show what else is built or being built around the store:
- Chipotle (3115 Ronald Reagan Blvd.) and Panda Express with a drive-thru (530 Peachtree Parkway) have completed building permits and county business licenses.
- LaserAway has a tenant build-out permit, issued July 14, 2026, for Suite 955A at 3145 Ronald Reagan Blvd. Jacob's Sept. 18 photo shows its sign up.
- Potbelly has an interior build-out permit, issued Aug. 4, 2026, for Suite 975A at the same address, and sign permits issued in August.
- Those suites are in a 15,000-square-foot shops building the county permitted in September 2025 (BLDGCOMM-25-0479).
- Whataburger's building permit at 3119 Ronald Reagan Blvd., issued Sept. 12, 2025, is marked expired, and its sign permits were withdrawn at the applicant's request in November 2025. Whether Whataburger still plans to build there is not clear from the records.
- An Audi dealership nearby at 3205 Ronald Reagan Blvd. received its county business license in July 2026.
The JLL flyer also lists Club Champion and Portillo's among its “key tenants.” That is leasing-flyer marketing, and we found no county permit for either.
What the site looks like now
Jacob's Sept. 18 photos show the Whole Foods building with exposed brick, a canopy structure going up over the entrance and paper-covered windows, without Whole Foods signage. That was six days before the county issued the wall-sign permits. The other buildings show the wider plan: smaller inline shops, including the LaserAway space, and storefronts still being built out or leased.
What is not yet clear
There is no public opening date. Neither Whole Foods nor Fuqua has announced one, and none of the county records or bid listings gives one. Whataburger's plans are unclear: its building permit has expired and its sign permits were withdrawn. The Fuqua and JLL/Esri demographic figures are from different years and sources and are not interchangeable. Whole Foods job listings for Cumming were active on Sept. 18, 2026; hiring often ramps up roughly six to 10 weeks before an opening, but that is an inference, not a Whole Foods announcement.
Updated Sept. 27, 2026: This article was revised to rest on Forsyth County's permit records and Fuqua Development's own project page. We removed claims we could not verify from those sources, including that this is the first new Whole Foods in metro Atlanta in more than five years, a store number, and several planned components of the center. Whataburger's permit status and the store's recent sign and inspection milestones were added.
Sources
Fuqua Development — Forsyth Town Center ↗
Crawford Lands — “What the New Whole Foods Says About Where Forsyth County Is Headed” ↗
County record BLDGCOMM-25-0587 — 35,500 sq ft grocer shell ↗
County record SIGN-26-0304 — Whole Foods Market wall sign, north entrance ↗
County record SIGN-26-0305 — Whole Foods Market wall sign, east side ↗
County record SIGN-26-0201 — Whole Foods Market monument sign ↗
County record BLDGCOMM-26-0609 — Whole Foods generator ↗
County record BLDGCOMM-25-0479 — 15,000 sq ft shops building ↗
County record BLDGCOMM-26-0379 — LaserAway build-out ↗
County record BLDGCOMM-26-0236 — Potbelly build-out ↗
County record BLDGCOMM-25-0127 — Chipotle ↗
County record BLDGCOMM-25-0224 — Panda Express ↗
County record BLDGCOMM-25-0322 — Whataburger (expired) ↗
County record SIGN-25-0248 — Whataburger sign (withdrawn) ↗
County record BLV260902 — Audi dealership ↗
PlanHub — retail store construction bid ↗
JLL, “For Lease — Forsyth Town Center” flyer (2025) — private leasing flyer supplied for this reporting; not linked publicly.
Photos by Jacob, Sept. 18, 2026. The top photo shows construction progress at the future anchor; it does not show Whole Foods signage.