On the morning of November 1, 2007, Bridge Street Town Centre opened in Huntsville, Alabama; a carousel was spinning, and a Venetian gondola was out on a 10-acre artificial lake.
That first November, in a drought, the center paid for city water to keep the lake full. At night, lights glowed behind upper windows that had no rooms behind them. Below, shops and restaurants followed the winding street along the lake.
Between 2013 and 2014, to make room for a Belk department store, the center filled in 4.5 of the lake's 10 acres. It took more than 16,000 truckloads of fill, and a parking garage went up beside Belk.
That left the shops along the rest of the water, and the question of how their storefronts are doing today.
Bridge Street opens around a 10-acre lake
On the morning of November 1, 2007, a Venetian gondola and a set of paddle boats were out on a 10-acre artificial lake, and a carousel was turning.
Bridge Street Town Centre opened that day as an open-air shopping center in Cummings Research Park West in Huntsville, Alabama.
The street was made to look older than the project itself.
Along the water, 14 buildings stood at changing angles, with plaster and stone fronts, uneven rooflines, and different clay-tile treatments as the road curved past them.
At night, some upper windows glowed even though there were no rooms behind them.
The lake needed outside help within weeks.
That November, in a severe drought, the center kept adding city water to it and paid Huntsville Utilities for the water.
Only part of the street was open for business.
P.F. Chang's, Cantina Laredo, Anthropologie, and J.Crew were among the first season's tenants, more stores were due through the end of 2007 and into 2008, and the Westin hotel and the cinema were still construction sites.
The idea behind the street had been much larger.
In January 2004, O&S Holdings was promoting a project of about 100 acres under the working name "World Famous Bridge Street," part of an eventual plan for about 2 million square feet of shops, restaurants, offices, hotel rooms, and homes.
The commercial corner was meant to give the people who worked in the research park shops and services close to their jobs.
Some of it had been expected in 2006.
Construction started in 2005, and what opened in November 2007 was a first phase of about 450,000 square feet of retail.
The cinema needed a council vote before it could open as Monaco Pictures planned it, with a restaurant downstairs and an adults-only area upstairs.
In May 2007, the Huntsville City Council changed the ordinance so theaters showing films rated R or lower could serve alcohol in separate areas, and Monaco's 14-screen cinema opened later that November.
The Westin tower and its unsold condos
The Westin Huntsville opened on April 12, 2008, the first Westin in Alabama, in an 11-story building at the center.
It had 210 guest rooms, a spa, and a ballroom that held as many as 850 people.
The upper floors were set aside for 74 condominiums, marketed as luxury homes.
Homes had been part of the hotel from its first announcement.
When Starwood and O&S unveiled it in December 2004, it was a 12-story building with 200 rooms and 40 private residences on top, due in the fall of 2006.
By the time the tower opened, the retail center had grown to about 550,000 square feet, with room for more than 70 stores and restaurants.
None of the 74 condominiums sold. Their floors stayed unfinished shells above a working hotel. The developer had more plans.
In June 2009, O&S announced a six-story office building and tennis courts built for championship play, and it hoped to break ground on a department store within months.
The office building and the courts did not follow on that schedule, and no department store opened while O&S owned the retail center.
Belk rises on 4.5 acres of filled lake
Between 2013 and 2014, the western end of the lake became the expansion site: 4.5 of its 10 acres were drained, then raised with more than 16,000 truckloads of fill.
Caisson foundations carried the new construction because the former lake bed posed a settlement risk. Bridge Street came under a new owner. In 2012, O&S sold the retail center to Miller Capital Advisory.
That year Belk was ready to give up its store at Madison Square Mall, where sales were weakening, and it was weighing Bridge Street against Decatur Mall and a site along Interstate 565 in the Madison area.
Either of those last two would have carried Belk's sales tax out of Huntsville.
In September 2012, the Huntsville City Council approved $4 million for public infrastructure tied to a Bridge Street expansion built around Belk.
The package covered a new Belk, one more restaurant, a parking deck two stories high, and roughly 45,000 square feet of added shops. Construction did not close the rest of Bridge Street.
When the expansion was finished, it included four retail buildings with about 50,000 square feet of shops and a 903-car garage.
Belk spent about $20 million on a two-level, 170,000-square-foot store, opened it on October 15, 2014, and left Madison Square behind.
Michael Kors, Pandora, and Orvis took space in the new buildings, and Bravo and Texas de Brazil opened in early 2015.
Element hotel rooms and Watermark apartments
The five empty floors at the top of the Westin tower finally came into use in 2017 as a second hotel.
Element Huntsville opened in April with 150 rooms on floors once intended for 74 condominiums; 68 were suites, and all 150 rooms had full kitchens.
Element guests used their own lobby and elevators and checked in separately, while some amenities served both hotels.
The Westin was itself being renovated from 2016 into 2018, and that work added 22 rooms, taking it to 232. The homes the tower never sold arrived in buildings of their own.
In 2019, Watermark at Bridge Street Town Centre delivered 244 apartments in two four-story buildings, the first apartment community built anywhere inside Cummings Research Park.
That December a third hotel brand opened on the Bridge Street property, when the 131-room Hyatt Place took its first guests. By early 2020, most of Watermark's apartments were occupied.
Main Event moves into the old Toys "R" Us
Toys "R" Us, together with Babies "R" Us, had been one of the center's large draws through the 2010s.
The store closed in 2018, during the chain's liquidation of its U.S. business, and the big building was kept whole instead of being divided into smaller shops.
On February 25, 2022, Main Event opened inside it, in 49,300 square feet with 22 bowling lanes, billiards, laser tag, a ropes course, and virtual-reality games, plus a bar and dining.
It was Main Event's first location in Alabama. That May, the city named Bridge Street an arts and entertainment district.
From then on, drinks sold by businesses taking part, in the city's approved purple cups, could be carried along the street inside the district's boundary.
The cinema had needed an ordinance change in 2007 before it could serve alcohol in the theater, and in 2022 a drink could leave the business where it was bought.
L.L.Bean, LEGO, and the openings ahead
In November 2023, Tanger Inc. bought Bridge Street Town Centre for $193.5 million.
At the time the center covered about 825,000 square feet and held more than 80 shops, restaurants, and entertainment businesses, among them Belk, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Dick's Sporting Goods, Main Event, and the cinema.
One of the stores that came after the sale was the first of its kind in Alabama.
An official LEGO Store opened at Bridge Street in 2025, the same year a Starbucks arrived.
Warby Parker opened, Apple expanded its store, and Madewell and Crocs moved in before the middle of 2026.
That April, L.L.Bean opened a store of nearly 16,000 square feet, the company's first in Alabama. Under Tanger, Belk is still the department store.
About half of the original lake is left, and Belk and the garage stand on the filled western end. The center is filling up.
About 87 percent of Tanger's owned space was occupied in mid-2025, and about 92 percent a year later. More openings are on the calendar.
North Italia is scheduled to open on October 28, Sweet Paris Creperie & Cafe is expected in late 2026, and Shake Shack is set for 2027.
In September, plans were announced for a Toys "R" Us Express of about 5,500 square feet, which would bring the brand back to the center it left in 2018. A fourth hotel is planned as well.
Spandrel Development Partners bought a Bridge Street site in September 2025 for a 154-room AC Hotel by Marriott, with a restaurant, meeting and banquet space, and a patio, aimed at a 2028 opening.
The old competition has changed too. Madison Square Mall later closed and was torn down for MidCity, a project of shops, restaurants, a hotel, and entertainment a short drive north along Research Park Boulevard.
Bridge Street began as a way to give the people who worked in the research park somewhere to shop close to their jobs.
It is now a street of more than 100 shops and restaurants, with three hotels and an apartment complex built beside it.
Independent Publisher Notice
BestAttractions is an independent editorial publisher. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any location, business, property owner, manager, government agency, or organization described in this article. Comments posted on this page are not forwarded to, reviewed by, or acted upon by any entity mentioned in the article. For official inquiries, complaints, applications, bookings, or other requests, please contact the relevant entity directly through its official website or other verified channels.