Walk down Bull Street past 37th and you'll notice the storefront at 2400 that used to hold Lite Foot Company, the zero-waste refill shop, sitting quiet. This summer, Leopold's Ice Cream, the Savannah institution that's been scooping since three Greek brothers opened their first shop in 1919, filed a petition with the Historic Preservation Commission to hang a neon sign there. It would be the family's fourth location, joining outposts at the airport and on Whitemarsh Island, in a building that already holds Sola Salon, F45 Training, Brochu's Family Tradition, and Garden Square.
Here's the part that actually matters if you live in this neighborhood and not just visit it: Leopold's has also had plans on file for years to reopen its true original address at 720 Habersham Street, across from the downtown Kroger. Those plans have stalled in permitting and review while the Starland petition, filed this summer, already made it onto the commission's calendar. A century-old family business with a real claim to downtown nostalgia is choosing to put its energy, and its money, into a stretch of Bull Street that didn't exist as a commercial destination twenty-five years ago. That's not sentiment. That's a read on where the foot traffic actually is right now.
The sign that says more than the ice cream
Leopold's doesn't need Starland. It has three working locations and a brand that survives on nostalgia alone. So when the family picks a fourth spot, the choice functions like a foot-traffic report nobody had to commission. The building at 2400 Bull went through a full redevelopment between 2020 and 2022 and now operates as one of the district's commercial anchors, home to a fitness studio, a hair salon, a Southern comfort restaurant, and a plant and home shop under one roof. Leopold's slotting into that mix isn't a bet on an up-and-coming block. It's a business reading a block that has already arrived.
That distinction matters because Starland has worn the "emerging" label for longer than a lot of neighborhoods get away with. Two SCAD graduates, John Deaderick and Greg Jacobs, bought the old Starland Dairy building in 1999 with a plan to turn a stretch of Bull Street between 37th and Victory Drive into something worth visiting. Back in the Day Bakery and Graveface Records were among the first to take a chance on the area, followed by Starland Café. That was over two decades ago. A neighborhood doesn't stay "emerging" for 25 years. At some point the arrival already happened, and what you're watching now is legacy brands catching up to it.
What housing catching up looks like
If Leopold's arrival is the retail signal, the residential signal came in June with the ribbon cutting for The Jardin Residences on Montgomery Street. The crowd that gathered for it spilled onto the sidewalk, and the building's floor-to-ceiling windows gave onlookers a look at finished units before residents had even moved boxes in. What's worth noting for anyone who already lives nearby is what the developers announced would come next: a restaurant, a coffee shop, and a dessert concept, all open to the wider Starland community rather than just building tenants.
That order is backwards from how most neighborhoods develop. Usually rooftops go up first and the coffee shops follow the rooftops. In Starland, the food and art and shopping identity built for twenty years before density caught up to it. The Jardin isn't creating demand for a neighborhood amenity. It's adding supply to a demand that was already proven by Foxy Loxy, Sulfur Studios, and everyone else who got here first.
That's also the throughline connecting Leopold's and The Jardin, even though on paper they're unrelated stories. One is a legacy ice cream brand skipping its own birthplace. The other is new construction promising retail it hasn't built yet. Both are companies looking at Starland's existing rhythm, not its potential, and deciding to plug into it.
The small businesses still setting that rhythm
None of this works if the neighborhood's original character gets steamrolled by newcomers, and so far that hasn't happened. Sulfur Studios at 2301 Bull Street still runs its artist-in-residency program across 26 small galleries. Starlandia, the art supply shop a few doors down at 2438 Bull, is still LGBTQ-owned and still stocks reclaimed materials alongside new ones. The businesses that built the district's reputation are the same ones still open on any given Tuesday.
Marguerite Seckman, who owns and co-owns several Starland businesses including the botanically themed shop Superbloom, put it simply when talking about what makes the district work:
"We all help each other out and want each other to thrive."
That cooperative streak shows up in practical ways. One for the Road, a collective Seckman started to help new business owners get up and running without the overhead of a standalone lease, graduated its first tenant, Golden Hour, to a permanent shop at Plant Riverside District within a year. The district isn't just absorbing new arrivals. It's actively producing them and sending some downtown once they're ready.
A recent Savannah Magazine piece on the district captured the same feeling from the editorial side. Associate editor Mary Cornetta wrote that:
"Whenever I spend time in the Starland District, I leave feeling energized and inspired."
If you live within walking distance of Bull Street, none of that is news. What might be news is that the district's two biggest headlines this summer, a century-old ice cream brand and a brand-new residential building, are both proof that the small-business texture came first and everything else is still building around it.
What's actually new on the ground right now
Beyond the two headline stories, the day-to-day options keep shifting. If you haven't been down Bull Street in a few weeks, here's what's changed:
- Lucia Pasta Bar has settled into its restored space with house-made pastas, wood-fired pizza, and Negronis on draft
- Late Air has built a following for natural wines paired with dishes like littleneck clams and roasted Brussels sprouts
- Leopold's filed its sign petition for the planned 2400 Bull location this summer, its fourth shop alongside the airport and Whitemarsh Island scoop counters
- The Jardin Residences on Montgomery Street is open, with its promised restaurant, coffee shop, and dessert concept still to come
None of these openings happened in isolation. They're filling in a map that's been under construction since 1999, one storefront at a time.
The rhythm that hasn't changed
For all the turnover, one fixture has stayed exactly the same. Starland First Fridays started in 2012 as a grassroots effort by community members trying to help local artists and small businesses get noticed, and the nonprofit Art Rise Savannah has run it ever since. This month's walk landed on August 7, and true to form the format hasn't drifted much from its original purpose: galleries extending their hours, boutiques staying open for evening shoppers, live music spilling onto the sidewalks along Bull Street. The next one lands September 4, same rhythm, first Friday of the month, like clockwork.
That kind of continuity is worth sitting with. A neighborhood can add an ice cream shop, a residential building, and half a dozen new restaurants in a single summer without losing the monthly ritual that's been drawing people out of their houses for over a decade. Starland isn't reinventing itself. It's filling in the outline it already drew.
The takeaway if you already live here
The easy version of this story is "Starland keeps growing." The more useful version is narrower: the neighborhood has stopped being a bet and started being a destination that established players are choosing over safer, more familiar options. Leopold's had an easier path sitting right in front of it, reopening on its own historic ground, and passed on it in favor of Starland's momentum. That's a stronger vote of confidence than any press release about a new coffee shop could offer.
If you're already walking these blocks on First Fridays or watching for that pink neon sign to finally light up on Bull Street, you're not watching a neighborhood arrive anymore. You're watching one get chosen.
Whenever the conversation does turn toward buying or selling in Savannah's neighborhoods, from Starland to the squares beyond it, Michele Niles brings the same attention to detail she'd want for her own block. Schedule a white-glove consultation whenever you're ready to talk through what a neighborhood like this actually means for your next move.
