Mark Toro Interview: Inside the Progress and Vision of Medley in Johns Creek
For over a decade, Avalon has stood as the undisputed benchmark for suburban mixed-use development, serving as the third place where North Fulton comes to do life together. Now, the visionary developer behind that transformative project, Mark Toro, is taking every lesson learned from Avalon’s design and operations to build Medley, the new “third place” in Johns Creek, opening October 29, 2026.
Medley will offer 150,000 square feet of retail, restaurant, and entertainment space, 110,000 square feet of office space, 750 luxury rental homes, 133 townhomes, a 150-room boutique hotel, and a 25,000-square-foot plaza.
The Alpharetta.com team had the opportunity to speak with Mark Toro about what made Johns Creek the perfect canvas for Medley and how the development will celebrate the community’s unique diversity.
Can you talk about Medley's progress in the past year and how your team's vision is translating into reality?
“We are now well into construction and well ahead of schedule. We’ve got a countdown clock in our office and in each of the construction trailers that goes to the tenth of a second. It’s kind of daunting when you look at it every day, but we’re ahead of schedule and feeling good about it.
We have begun mapping out our events calendar, starting with a two- or three-day grand opening celebration on the 29th of October. We have signed our deal with a hotel operator called Mainsail, who did the Epicurean hotel in Midtown and the guest house at Trilith. We have delivered the finished lots to our builder, Empire Homes, to start building townhomes. They will deliver roughly the same time as we open. We have leased 80% of the office building.
Johns Creek Mayor John Bradberry said there are around 27 languages spoken in the city’s high schools. It’s a highly educated, diverse, well-traveled, wealthy community with disposable income that knows great service and hospitality when they see it.
We couldn’t be more pleased with pre-leasing and the community’s embrace of Medley. We’ve essentially got our heads down, racing toward grand opening.”
What made Johns Creek the perfect location for Medley?
“The State Farm Insurance campus was a high-volume office building with probably more than a thousand employees. It had the infrastructure in place to support what we do. We demolished the large building and kept the smaller building.
Being located on McGinnis Ferry is key. One of the things about Atlanta is that there are so few east-west crossings of the Chattahoochee. East-west access has always been a challenge, and McGinnis Ferry is one of those east-west arterials. It allows us to reach out into Gwinnett County and west into North Fulton.
Medley’s location has the infrastructure and access, which are both critical to its success. Boiling it down further, the city of Johns Creek is investing in the Creekside Park trail system, which is a major recreational infrastructure improvement.
From a daytime population perspective, you have the Emory Johns Creek hospital and all the surrounding office space. Boston Scientific just built its new facility and opened it right beside us, bringing hundreds of new employees. From a retail perspective, the area’s daily population is great. It also provides our residents, whether townhome buyers or apartment residents, easy access to jobs.
When we build near medical facilities, we find that many healthcare employees make great residents. They work different hours, and the short commute is a big advantage for them.”
Can you walk me through your strategy for choosing tenants and balancing local concepts with established national brands at Avalon and Medley?
“Avalon is such a dominant fortress when it comes to national retailers, so that shopping trip is different than the average outing. Avalon has become the third place for many people in this community, a place beyond work and home where you come to do life together.
This third-place effect will still happen at Medley, but the key to Avalon was local F&B talent. There are three national chain restaurants at Avalon: Cru Food & Wine Bar, Kona Grill, and Ted’s Montana Grill. We’ll have Cru Food & Wine Bar and Shake Shack at Medley, but the remainder are local F&B-focused. We’re investing in local sole proprietors who are in their restaurants every day, who imbue heart and soul into what our community will become.
We explicitly avoid and have declined interest from a number of national restaurant operators and even some retailers who just don’t fit the brand.”
How do you consistently create the best experience for visitors and residents while maximizing NOI at your communities?
“Our secret sauce has a lot of different ingredients. The key factor is having a team with a service heart. We created that at Avalon and iterated a number of times. We have learned many lessons in the design and execution of Avalon that we are applying to Medley.
At Avalon, the plaza is the central gathering place, but on the perimeter, there’s a lot of soft goods retail, which does nothing to activate the public realm.
At Medley, we held the line and leased each and every space on the plaza to an F&B operator who will activate their patio. In some cases, we will hold their hand and help them understand how to activate a patio. For example, Rumi’s Kitchen at Avalon is one of the best patios in America.
The service and hospitality aspect is something we’ve honed and refined over 10 years at Avalon. Carla Cox, our Vice President of Marketing, founded the hospitality program at Avalon and is now building something similar at Medley.”
What specific design elements or strategies at Medley are you betting on most to create that "third place" in Johns Creek?
“One element is to reduce friction in everyday life. Whether it’s valet and concierge providing resort-level hospitality, or providing shaded seating areas where people can hang out and relax. We have many of these spaces at Avalon and learned from operating these lounges what works and what doesn’t.
At Medley, we’re introducing something called Tree Bar. There is a 30 to 40-year-old tree at the center of the project that we will activate by having a pop-up bar around the tree. It has a massive canopy that spans the entire street.
There will also be a pop-up bar for various events. Carla Cox is in the process of creating the calendar of events and deciding when we’re going to pop up at Tree Bar.”
A large part of your firm's philosophy is about creating 'human energy' in your developments. How do you instill this mindset in every member of your team?
“When we’re creating a public space, we envision how we’re going to use it. What event is going to happen here? Is it going to be yoga, storytelling, or someone playing the guitar? Is it going to be large-scale or small-scale?
We even look at the position of the sun at certain times of the day. At Avalon, we lucked out. The sun on a summer night sets just enough at 6:00 p.m., when we start Avalon Nights Live, the 3000 building perfectly shades the plaza. At Medley, we don’t have that luxury, so we’re building a system of shade sails to shade the plaza during events.
We did very in-depth sun studies to find where the sun is at various times of the year and times of the day when the plaza will be populated to make it a more comfortable environment. You really have to get that granular to understand how the guest experience is going to be impacted by everything, whether it’s rain, wind, shade, sun, cold, or heat. We want to make the public space as comfortable and relaxed as possible.
An important part of creating a more comfortable environment is visual. It’s about the look and feel of furnishings, the landscape palette, signage, wayfinding, and all the things that go into how our guests and residents perceive their environment and what it makes them feel.
Music is another critical component. One idea we are considering is enlisting the community in the creation of our soundtrack at Medley using an AI jukebox. With the numerous opportunities to use AI and various hardware and software combinations, we are exploring our options.”
Beyond the architecture, how is Medley being designed to reflect the unique demographics and culture of Johns Creek?
“There are two specific ways. One is the diversity in our F&B offering, featuring representation from virtually every corner of the world, including Asian, South Asian, Irish, Italian, and Spanish cuisines. Many of our shopkeepers were not born in the US; they’re immigrants from various countries. Our idea is to embrace that diversity.
Another way is through the events we will have at Medley. Johns Creek already has a very robust Diwali festival program. Our events lineup will also seek to acknowledge various groups within the community.”