North Atlanta Today: Medley Heads Into Its First Weekend

Medley heads into its first weekend in Johns Creek with all 112,000 square feet of its office space leased. That gives the new shopping and dining district a weekday customer base as its restaurants and stores begin welcoming visitors.

Friday, October 30, 2026. This edition brings together North Atlanta Star reporting available as of 3:20 p.m. Eastern.

Medley opens with workers already in place

Boehringer Ingelheim leased 73,000 square feet for its U.S. Animal Health headquarters and moved 500 employees in during August, according to Toro Development Company. Healthcare software company Brightree leased another 17,751 square feet. The remaining tenant has not been named, and move-in dates for the other tenants have not been announced.

The office building is a renovated part of the former State Farm campus. Medley’s first phase opened October 29; more of the 43-acre development is still to come. Read the office-leasing story and explore our continuing Medley guide before a visit.

Roswell funds a dispatch-system replacement

Roswell has approved funding for a $2 million replacement of its police dispatch and records system after officers warned that repeated outages were interfering with emergency operations. A $1 million federal grant will be matched by $1 million from the city.

Police Maj. Noah Caplan told the City Council that outages and inadequate vendor support had affected the existing system. The replacement is intended to improve information sharing and coordination between dispatchers, officers and neighboring agencies. An installation date and launch date have not been announced. Read the Roswell report.

Milton’s Freemanville Road detour has ended

The rebuilt Freemanville Road bridge over Cooper Sandy Creek reopened in both directions October 23, ending a closure that began May 26. The crossing sits between Providence and Landrum roads.

Crews still have work to finish around the bridge. The new span includes a lane each way, shoulders and space for a future walking and cycling path; that provision does not mean a trail has opened. Read our bridge update for the project details. This is a recap of the reopening, not a live traffic report.

A nearly flat jobs total hides a divided market

Metro Atlanta had an estimated 3,101,900 payroll jobs in September, nearly unchanged from a year earlier. The small annual decline was not statistically significant, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Health care and social assistance added 15,000 jobs over the year, while professional, scientific and technical services lost 7,600. Unemployment edged up to 3.5%. These are preliminary metropolitan-area estimates, not individual town totals or counts of current job openings. Our employment story explains the differences.

A teacher’s contract, and the women who challenged it

A 1915 letter offered Addie Cash a Fulton County teaching job for $50 a month, with a condition: marriage would be treated as resignation. The document survives in the district archives, now housed at the former Spalding Drive Elementary School in Sandy Springs.

District archivist Michael Santrock told North Atlanta Star in written responses that he has not established when Fulton first adopted the rule. In 1937, teacher Marie Long refused to sign a contract containing it, although she had no plans to marry. After being dismissed, she challenged the board in court. By January 1939, the restriction had been removed from employee contracts, according to the district archive’s history.

Read the full story, including the contract, the board’s resistance and the teachers’ fight to change it.

Before the weekend

Halloween falls on Saturday, October 31. Early Sunday, November 1, clocks move back from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m. as daylight saving time ends. Check clocks that do not update automatically, and expect darkness to arrive earlier by the clock on Sunday evening.

For Saturday’s neighborhood rounds, keep costumes visible, carry a light and watch carefully at crossings and around parked cars. Our Halloween and clock-change guide has more practical reminders.