Calavino Donati calls new acquaintances "doll," sandwiches "samiches," and desserts "sweet l'il things." But when it comes to describing the streetscape of the Old Fourth Ward, where she opened her restaurant 10 years ago, she doesn't mince words.

"It was crack, and it was hookers, and it was crime," says Donati.

(ENLARGE)

Donati

CHARLOTTE B. TEAGLE/Staff (ENLARGE)

The upscale transformation of the Old Fourth Ward is squeezing out some of the area's urban pioneers.

RELATED LINK: Photos: Old Fourth Ward

Despite this not-so-welcome committee, Donati took a gamble and invested $125,000 to build the Roman Lily Cafe — a funky haven for comfort food — at the edge of a decrepit 1920s retail strip with a view of gutted warehouses. The restaurant was an instant and abiding success.

Yet last month Donati decided to close her pioneering business. Now that so many restaurants and shops are looking for space in the neighborhood, rent had simply climbed too high.

The Old Fourth Ward has emerged from its seedy near-past as a locus of development. Condo and office projects rise everywhere, while blankets of kudzu and crumbling brick walls inexorably disappear. With all this building and renovation comes a fascinating new mix of retail options that promise to knit the area's jutting and angled street grid into a bona fide shop-and-stroll neighborhood — and not just for the locals. The Old Fourth Ward and its adjacent industrial stretch of Inman Park may sooner than we think emerge as both a citywide destination and a model for development along the proposed Beltline. But now the question is whether rising real estate prices will keep the area receptive to the offbeat businesses that started the boom.

The name of this neighborhood just east of downtown serves as a reminder of the old ward system (discontinued in 1954) that elected representatives to a bicameral city government. From the start, the Fourth Ward was the rough one, incorporating the city's red-light district along Decatur Street.

As the city of Atlanta defines the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood today, it looks like a side view of J. Lo's midsection from the waist to the knee, with a very ample curve following the railroad tracks along its eastern border.

Housing boom

This bodacious border with Inman Park — a prime tract along the Beltline — is ground zero for development along both sides of the tracks.

"Eleven thousand units are being built within a three-mile radius," says restaurateur Cliff Bramble , citing a neighborhood planning unit study. Bramble is managing partner in Rathbun's and Krog Bar — two restaurants that have shown just how much people are willing to pay to eat among warehouses and weeds if the food is good and the parking secure. The group's third venture, Kevin Rathbun Steak, will open a block away in spring in a new development that would touch the proposed recreation path of the Beltline.

Part of the appeal of the area is its central location. Part is the varied historical architecture, ranging from modest double shotguns to brick factories draped in ornate masonry and now subject to the rehabber's golden touch.

But part is surely the topography, with North Highland/Highland Avenue indeed standing high on its ridge — high enough for exciting skyline views from nearly any vantage point. The train tracks cut and wend through the valley underneath like a river.

"It's really 'follow the railroad track,' " says restaurateur Bob Amick (Two Urban Licks, Piebar), who just signed the papers on the gutted shell of a former chlorine bleach plant, which he will turn into a casual Cajun joint called Parish with Two Urban Licks chef Scott Serpas.

"It's a great corridor, but it's gotten a lot more expensive" in the past four years, claims Amick. With expensive real estate come expensive businesses.

The Highland corridor (called North Highland on the Inman Park side and Highland on the Old Fourth Ward side) is where Parish will be located, and it will soon rival Virginia-Highland as a place to dine and shop.

Having outgrown his kitchen at Sotto Sotto, owner Riccardo Ullio plans to move the popular trattoria a block away into new construction, rename it Sotto Sotto Nuovo and expand the menu to include more fish entrees. The previous space — to be rechristened Sotto Sotto Vecchio — will be for events and private parties.

A large new outpost of the upscale wine bar the Grape is rising across the street. Within walking distance is a new wine store called Hall's of Fine Wines. P'Cheen, the self-proclaimed "international bistro and pub," has met enough success to gobble up the space next door. Zuma serves sushi amidst minimalist black and red furnishings. The old Roman Lily space, priced out of comfort food, will become a new venue for Thai small plates. Amid all this, spas, salons and gift shops abound.

Recycled warehouse

So where's the funk?

For that, you'll have to walk three more blocks, past a row of gingerbread houses hugging a hilly street, to the strange and evocative knot of roads and alleys around Studioplex — the 225,000-square-foot complex of gallery and workshop space in a former cotton warehouse. In other words: follow the artists.

Irwin Street Market — a mixed-use urban market in an old refrigerator-repair facility now painted bright green — quietly opened its doors two weeks ago with a delightfully whacked-out collection of stalls. Among them are La Peche Rose, selling hand-sewn sateen lingerie in various shades of va-voom; Flower Bar, with custom bouquets named after cocktails; Dough Bar, featuring "decadent cookies"; and a children's furniture workshop called Dream 'n Play. The anchor is a new commissary for Jake's Ice Cream with a retail shop.

The Edgewood Avenue corridor just down the street for years had one lonely restaurant — Thumbs Up Diner — standing sentry. Now it has plenty of company, including the popular coffee shop Javaology and a vegan spot called Power Point.

Yet the funkiest place of all is hidden around the corner at a five-points intersection that you'd never know existed unless you went looking for it. Lottafrutta looks like what would happen if Peter Max and Carmen Miranda decided to move into an old house together and get high. One wall is a clinical close-up of a strawberry, another of a kiwi.

The menu focuses on fruit cups — some with granola and yogurt, others with chile and lime.

"In our culture we grew up around a lot of fruit," explains owner Myrna Perez, who comes from a Texas border town. "It's a staple."

So far, the neighbors have responded favorably.

Joan Garner, a 10-year resident of the Old Fourth Ward, appreciates that Lottafrutta "welcomes our dog."

Garner, the executive director of the Historic District Development Corp., is happy with the new retail options. "I love it that we have so many restaurants within walking distance now," she says.

In the face of such changes, her agency is working to keep this section of the Old Fourth Ward affordable for long-term residents — even as tourists increasingly wander over from the nearby Martin Luther King Jr. Historic District.

"Nine times out of 10, they say this is the most beautiful part of Atlanta they've seen," Perez marvels. Indeed, with the mix of rehabbed warehouses and original architecture ranging from shotguns to art deco apartments, with the poetic pitch and cant of the streets, the intersection gives off a rare vibe.

Add a psychedelic fruit market right in the middle of it all, and this could only be one place in our changing city — the Old Fourth Ward.