"It could help business down there because not as many tourists, probably, go down that way."
That's a SCAD student named Brianna Reese, talking to WTOC back in June about why Leopold's Ice Cream, the 1919 Savannah institution with the neon sign and the line out the door on East Broughton Street, is opening a shop in Starland. Read that quote twice. A hundred-year-old ice cream brand is expanding into a neighborhood specifically because it doesn't get tourist traffic. That's backwards from how retail expansion usually works, and it's the actual story here, not the flavor list.
Every business opening on Bull Street this year is making some version of the same bet: on people who live nearby and come back on a Tuesday, not people who show up once with a camera. If you already live in Starland, that bet is worth understanding, because it's changing what's within walking distance of your porch.
The Corner That Used to Feed the Neighborhood, Not Entertain It
Start with the address: 2400 Bull St. Before it was anything trendy, this building held a Sav-A-Lot and, before that, David's supermarket. Grocery stores, plain and simple, doing grocery-store work for whoever lived nearby. Between 2020 and 2022 the site got redeveloped into the mixed-use building that anchors the corridor today, with Sola Salon, F45 Training, Brochu's Family Tradition, and Garden Square as tenants.
Earlier this year, one of those spaces opened up when Lite Foot Company closed. In June, the Savannah Historic Preservation Commission approved a sign petition for the space's next occupant: an illuminated Leopold's Ice Cream sign, roughly 30 square feet of channel letters and neon, the same warm-pink glow regulars associate with the downtown flagship. As of that June approval, no opening date had been announced. But Visit Savannah's own destination guide for the district now lists "Leopold's Ice Cream - Bull Street" as a featured Starland stop, alongside longtime fixtures like Water Witch Tiki and Picker Joe's Antique Mall. The sign is approved, the address is set, and the neighborhood's official tourism guide already treats it as a fixture. The countdown is on even if the calendar date isn't.
Trace the arc of that one corner and you're tracing the district's arc. A building that once existed to sell milk and canned goods to whoever lived within walking distance now exists to give those same residents a haircut, a workout, and, soon, a scoop of peach ice cream. That's not decline and it's not gentrification in the abstract. It's a neighborhood's daily-use infrastructure getting replaced in kind, just with different categories of daily use.
Three Locations Built for Visitors, One Built for Neighbors
Here's what makes the Starland shop different from every other Leopold's expansion, and why it's worth more than a passing mention in a "look what's new" roundup.
Leopold's currently operates:
- The flagship on East Broughton Street downtown, steps from River Street foot traffic and the SCAD sign
- A kiosk inside the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport
- A full shop, also inside the airport terminal
- A location on Whitemarsh Island, along the route most visitors take toward Tybee
Every one of those locations sits on a path built for people passing through. Downtown catches river tourists. The airport catches literally everyone flying in or out. Whitemarsh Island catches the beach-bound. Starland catches none of that. There's no river walk, no departure gate, no beach traffic funneling people down Bull Street south of 37th. If you end up at the new shop, it's because you live nearby, work nearby, or specifically drove there, not because you stumbled off a tour bus.
That's the calculation Reese was naming. Chris Hirata, who works nearby at Seasons of Japan, made a similar point to WTOC, noting there's a crowd that goes downtown purely for the nostalgia of the original shop, but that a Starland location isn't really built to capture new visitors so much as to serve the people already circulating through the district on a normal week. A hundred-year-old brand skipping its own tourist playbook to bet on regulars is the kind of local signal worth more than a headline announcing a new flavor case.
The Rest of Bull Street Is Making the Same Bet
Leopold's isn't the only new name on the corridor this fall, and the others tell the same story from a different angle.
On September 4, Linen & Leaf Design Co. held its ribbon cutting at 2519 Bull St., a few doors down from the Leopold's building. Founded by Taylor Cox and Tristen Bolin, the shop pairs vintage antiques and home décor with an interactive flower and tea bar, sourcing local favorites from Ashford Tea Co., Hale Tea Co., and baked goods from Savannah's Bloom Cookies. The Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce described it in its own grand-opening writeup as a cozy neighborhood haven built for slowing down and gathering, not a stop designed for a one-time visit between other errands. That's a shop built around repeat mornings, not foot traffic passing through once.
Earlier in the year, 520 Wings, already a familiar Savannah name, confirmed plans to expand into a new Bull Street storefront. That's a hometown operator doubling down on the corridor it already knows, not an outside chain testing the waters.
None of this is happening in a vacuum. It's landing on a corridor that already has its own gravity: Starland Yard's rotating food truck lineup, Two Tides Brewing Company, Water Witch Tiki, Picker Joe's Antique Mall & Vintage Market, and the event space at Victory North. The new arrivals aren't trying to out-compete that existing draw. They're slotting into it, on the assumption that the people who already treat those spots as regular stops will do the same for an ice cream counter and a flower bar.
What This Actually Changes for Your Week
If you live in Starland, none of this requires a special trip. It changes what's already inside your normal loop.
A Tuesday night ice cream run no longer means driving downtown, circling for parking near Broughton Street, and standing in a line built for out-of-towners on vacation. It means walking or driving a few blocks to a building you probably already pass on the way to F45 or Sola Salon. A slow Saturday morning now has an actual destination built for it: coffee or tea at Linen & Leaf, a look through the antiques, then whatever else is already on your list along Bull Street.
None of these openings changes the character of the neighborhood. If anything, they confirm something residents have been saying for a while: Starland works because it's built for people who stay, not people who pass through once. A hundred-year-old ice cream brand choosing this corridor specifically because it isn't a tourist route is about as clear a confirmation of that as you're going to get from a business plan.
If you're already calling Starland home, keep an eye on Bull Street this fall. The sign is approved, the flower bar is open, and the corridor is filling in exactly the way its regulars would want it to. And if all this local movement has you thinking about what's next for your own address here, whether you're settling into Starland for the long haul or landing in Savannah on orders, the team at Wynn Martin knows this corridor block by block. Reach out and Get a Free PCS & Relocation Consultation whenever you're ready to talk through what's actually happening on the ground here.
