After seven years on the Tucker-Northlake CID Board of Directors, Honey Van de Kreke has concluded her service following nearly three decades of leadership across Tucker’s civic and business organizations. From transforming Main Street and establishing the Tucker CID to championing cityhood and serving on Tucker’s first City Council, her work helped lay the foundation for much of what Tucker has become today.
“Honey has never been satisfied simply talking about what Tucker could become,” said Matthew Lee, executive director of the Tucker-Northlake CID. “For years she has spent her time building partnerships to turn ideas into reality. Her influence has opened doors that had been closed, and she has found solutions to challenges before others realized there was a problem to solve.”
Van de Kreke has held leadership roles with nearly every major civic and business organization in Tucker, including the Tucker Civic Association, Tucker Business Association, Main Street Tucker Alliance, Tucker-Northlake CID and Tucker Downtown Development Authority.
Her work began long before Tucker had a city government or a CID.
One of her most consequential efforts was the transformation of Main Street. Although Tucker already had long-established events on Main Street, including Tucker Day, routine commercial activity was limited after the workday ended. Main Street was then a four-lane road with narrow sidewalks. For decades, the traffic signal at Main Street and First Avenue began flashing at 6:00 p.m. By then, most downtown businesses had closed, leaving Main Street largely quiet for the evening.
Van de Kreke and other community leaders saw more potential.
Through the Main Street Tucker Alliance, she helped lead the effort to reduce Main Street from four lanes to two and construct a wider streetscape with improved sidewalks, landscaping, lighting and public space. The project was controversial, and some people remain irritated by the decision to remove two traffic lanes. Its long-term effect, however, is difficult to dispute.
The streetscape changed how people experienced downtown by making Main Street more welcoming to pedestrians. The investment helped encourage Local 7 to open on Main Street and demonstrated that Downtown Tucker could support businesses that remained active into the evening.
Today, Main Street is a destination. Restaurants and other shops now fill buildings that once went dark at the end of the workday. Sidewalks that were once largely empty now support outdoor dining, festivals and community gatherings.
The transformation did not happen by accident. It began with people willing to imagine something different before Tucker had the governmental structure or dedicated resources to make that vision easy.
Van de Kreke brought the same approach to the formation of the Tucker Community Improvement District.
She understood that Tucker needed more than good ideas. It needed a dependable local funding source that could improve the commercial district and help attract outside investment. She became the principal organizer of the Tucker CID, through which commercial property owners voluntarily tax themselves to fund improvements and services.
CID revenue can also provide the local matching funds needed to compete for state and federal grants. Van de Kreke saw the CID as a way for Tucker property owners to invest in their community while positioning Tucker to bring more public funding back to the area.
The DeKalb County Board of Commissioners approved the Tucker CID in 2013. It later expanded into the Northlake area and became the Tucker-Northlake CID. Van de Kreke joined the CID Board of Directors in 2019.
During her seven years on the Board, she brought decades of institutional knowledge and a business owner’s understanding of the district. She supported the CID’s work in beautification, public safety, transportation, economic development and long-range planning. She also chaired the Beautification Committee, helping guide services such as street sweeping and maintenance throughout the district.
Her CID involvement was part of a much broader record of service.
Van de Kreke served as president of the Tucker Civic Association in the 1990s and later held several leadership positions with the Tucker Business Association, including president. She helped organize Tucker Day and other community events through the Main Street Tucker Alliance. She participated in Tucker’s early Livable Centers Initiative study and represented District 1 on DeKalb County’s Park Bond Citizens Advisory Board.
Her position on cityhood developed as Tucker’s circumstances changed. She initially believed that a CID could provide many of the improvements the community needed without creating a city government. When competing incorporation proposals threatened to divide Tucker and place portions of the community within other proposed cities, she became one of the leaders working to protect Tucker’s boundaries and identity.
Van de Kreke was involved in Tucker’s cityhood movement from its early organizing meetings. She helped raise money, organize public meetings and build support for incorporation. After voters approved cityhood in November 2015, she was elected to represent District 1, Post 1, on Tucker’s first City Council.
As a member of the inaugural Council, she helped turn the idea of a city into a functioning government. Tucker’s first mayor and council had to establish ordinances, hire staff, adopt policies, assume responsibility for parks and planning, and build the administrative foundation for everything the City would later undertake.
After leaving the Council, Van de Kreke continued serving Tucker through organizations including the Downtown Development Authority. Her support for downtown businesses and façade improvements continued the mission that had guided the Main Street streetscape years earlier: encourage meaningful investment while protecting the identity and sense of community that make Tucker distinctive.
Her service has been recognized with the DeKalb Community Hero Award, the Tucker Business Association’s first Lifetime Achievement Award, Tucker’s Citizen of the Month recognition and a Women’s History Month Trailblazer Award from United States Representative Hank Johnson.
Honey Van de Kreke’s departure from the CID Board closes one chapter, not her involvement in Tucker. The Tucker-Northlake CID thanks Honey for seven years of Board service and for the unparalleled leadership and commitment she has brought to the organization and the larger Tucker community over many years.