The Atlanta Preservation Center is set to kick off its annual Phoenix Flies event on March 3 with a roster of free tours through the city’s most historic locales. This year will feature some of the city’s first mid-century buildings, now old enough to be considered historic properties.
It’s the preservation center’s biggest event. This year, the nonprofit has 102 partners hosting over 150 free events ranging from walking tours to virtual talks. All tours are funded through sponsorships. Atlanta Preservation Center Executive Director David Mitchell called the event a real “who’s who of people stewarding their spaces.”
“I think it’s really important for people to appreciate the fact that this city has a pile of culture and a pile of identity,” Mitchell said. “It’s not transactional, and it’s not something to be leveraged to who gets to enjoy it.”
From March 3 to March 28, partners will pack a calendar with free events. There is no overarching theme or message. Its history is presented by people who care about it. The size of the partners range, too. None get paid to host tours. There are larger groups like Oakland Cemetery and smaller partners who have restored individual homes like the Zuber-Jarrell House.
Mitchell said the overarching goal is to turn Atlanta residents into stewards of their local history. Phoenix Flies helps by removing all “barriers of entry.”
“It also provides permission for people to go to places in Atlanta that they may have wanted to go to before, but now can use the umbrella of Phoenix Flies to go or visit,” Mitchell said.
It’s a big year for the upcoming Phoenix Flies. The annual event started 22 years ago in 2003 as a way for the Atlanta Preservation Center to honor the rescue of the endangered historic Fox Theatre. It started with 16 partners and 40 events but has grown to over 100 partners today. But Mitchell said the nonprofit struggled to find partners in the years after the onset of COVID-19. He credits communications specialist Mary Budwick with helping gather the list of “high caliber” partners this year.
Budwick said the event is based on a mutual exchange between the tour hosts and the preservation center.
“What we do is give a place and a platform for it to happen,” Budwick said. “They couldn’t do it without a platform, and Atlanta Preservation Center couldn’t do it without the tours.”
This year’s calendar includes events at the Tara Theatre, Zuber-Jarrell House and dozens of other spots. It also expands beyond Atlanta. Historic Denver will host a digital event to talk about each city’s fight to preserve historical structures.
Phoenix Flies 2025 will release its annual lineup as a virtual and physical book copy. This year, the cover of the book is the Tara Theatre. The theater opened as Loew’s Tara Theatre in 1968 and closed in 2022 before reopening under new leadership in 2023. Mitchell said he chose the Tara Theatre to spotlight mid-century buildings.
“We want to grow the appreciation of our mid-century catalog of buildings,” Mitchell said. “In Atlanta, that is the great frontier.”
At 50 years old, buildings can be considered historic. Many properties from the mid-century era, like the Tara, have just entered the historic catalog. Mitchell also hopes the new buildings will draw in even broader audiences who might resonate with 1960s history.
Budwick said part of Phoenix Flies is how broad of an audience it can attract. People don’t have to give a reason for attending or be experts in preservation. The events are an opportunity to figure out “what you care about.”
“I think everybody kind of has, like, a different reason to attend and every partner has a different reason to participate,” Budwick said. “You don’t have to write an essay to justify why you want to see a house or a building.”
Mid-century, cemetery, whatever it may be, Mitchell just wants people to care. The executive director said the “greatest thing you can do is love your city,” and he thinks Phoenix Flies is all about Atlanta’s identity.
“There’s nothing else like this out there,” Mitchell said.
Event registrations will go live on Feb. 21 at 10 a.m. at atlantapreservationcenter.com
