When did you last walk through the doors of the Rialto on East Broad Street? The theater opened on September 1, 1922, and closed suddenly in August 2019 in a tenant and landlord dispute. That ended 97 years as a movie house. This October the lobby is open again on weekends. It isn't showing movies. It is hosting AddamsFest Americana, an art exhibit pairing original Charles Addams works with pieces by local artists.

That lobby sums up this year's festival. AddamsFest is back for its ninth year. Its most interesting settings are downtown buildings and blocks that are partway between what they were and what they will become. A theater that won't see construction crews until 2027 is showing cartoons. A street that changed a third of its storefronts this year closes to traffic for pumpkin decorating. A shrine to the macabre turns out to be a good way to tour a downtown in the middle of a rebuild.

A Theater With a Construction Date at Last

The Rialto's reopening is temporary, but now it has a defined end point. On July 24, 2026, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority approved up to $43.3 million in Cultural Arts Facilities Expansion tax credits for the project. The agency describes it as a gut renovation and adaptive reuse. The plan includes a 450-person flexible performance and event space, galleries, four classrooms, and new accessibility and building systems.

The Westfield Leader's headline gave the award as $43.4 million. Its article text and NJEDA's own announcement both say $43.3 million.

The organization behind the project began as the Westfield Arts Collective, a nonprofit that announced an agreement to buy the theater in 2021. The project was first called Center for Creativity at the Rialto. It now goes by Rialto Center for Creativity. According to the center's announcement of the state award, construction is expected to begin in 2027 and the center plans to open in 2029. A separate $10 million fundraising campaign will support construction and early operations.

So the building is in a holding pattern. The Rialto describes its current calendar as pre-construction community and fundraising events. AddamsFest Americana runs October 9 through 25, on Friday evenings, Saturday afternoons, and Sunday mornings and afternoons. Its theme is America250, so it looks at the American experience through an Addams lens, using originals on loan from the Tee & Charles Addams Foundation. The show is in the lobby at 250 E. Broad St. After the exhibit, the Rialto's Spotlight Series has an on-site conversation with Michael A. Jackman on Thursday, October 29.

Each weekend the doors open now is one of a limited number before the 2027 work begins.

Quimby Street Closes for a Morning and Keeps Changing Afterward

The festival's biggest daytime event is Addams Family Fun Day, Sunday, October 18, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Quimby Street closes to traffic for character appearances, pumpkin decorating, music, and merchant activities. Families walking that block will see a different street from the one they saw a year ago.

Here is Quimby's turnover in 2026, address by address:

• 103 Quimby St. Le Bistrot celebrated its opening in September. It is a relaxed, classic French neighborhood bistro from owners Redha Bettahar and Dominique Sartori. The menu includes escargots, oeuf mayonnaise, Basque-style chicken, pork tenderloin with Dijon sauce, île flottante and chocolate mousse, and the restaurant was BYOB.
• 104 Quimby St. Learning Express, the toy store, announced its closure at the end of July and had closed by August 10. It said it was looking for a new local spot.
• 109 Quimby St. The Scoop N Scootery, which delivers customizable ice cream sundaes, is listed as opening soon.
• 114 Quimby St. Vina, a Vietnamese street food restaurant from the owners of Kirshenbaum Baking Co., plans to open soon.

The rest of downtown follows the same pattern. TAPinto Westfield's October 6 roundup lists recent arrivals. Kome Omakase just held its grand opening at 407 South Ave. West. Bagel Cafe NJ opened at 272 North Ave. East, and Framebridge at 220 E. Broad St. Modern & Classic Rugs, which left Westfield for Summit years ago, is back at 11 E. Broad St. The same report covers two departures from Broad Street. Francis Henri's lease ended, and the boutique said it had outgrown the space and would keep its Montclair store. Rush Bowls closed its location in September. Perch & Parlor is expected at 102 E. Broad St. with a specialty coffee bar, brunch and dinner, and Straight Up Indian is coming to 9 Elm St.

The festival also has a tool aimed at this turnover. "Wednesday's Finds" is new this year and runs every Wednesday in October, with themed specials, giveaways and seasonal treats at downtown businesses. When a block has this many first-year tenants, a weekly reason to walk in the door does real work.

Elm Street's Supermarket Is the Change Without a Next Chapter

The Rialto has a 2029 date and Quimby has signs in the windows. The building at 219 Elm Street has neither. On July 22, Stop & Shop told TAPinto Westfield it would close the store "after a routine evaluation of our store operations." The company said it intended to keep operating "through the early fall of 2026" and that associates could transfer to other locations. No local report through early October gives the store's final day.

Two days later, Mayor Jeremy Berman addressed the property in his weekly message:

"While this is privately owned property and the Town does not have a role in determining its future use, I do want to provide some important context. The property was sold in the first quarter of this year, and I have since had several productive conversations with the new owners. Historically, the new owners have been recognized for acquiring, repositioning, and re-tenanting commercial properties—not as residential developers."

The Westfield Leader reported on July 30 that the site's future was still unknown. For weekly groceries, NJBIZ noted that a Trader Joe's is less than a quarter mile from the Elm Street store. NJ.com listed the nearest remaining Stop & Shop locations as Watchung, Berkeley Heights, Union and South Orange.

In the same July 24 message, the mayor announced the Rialto's state award. One downtown anchor got a funded plan and another got a closing notice in the same week.

The Rest of October, Date by Date

As of October 10, these AddamsFest events and related dates are still ahead, many of them in downtown spaces that are changing:

All month there is the floating Addams Family house on Mindowaskin Pond, modeled on the Presbyterian Church's Christmas display. The Addams-inspired murals the Westfield Public Arts Commission unveiled in 2021 are at the Central Avenue underpass. Wicked Windows of Westfield fills downtown storefronts with Halloween scenes through the end of October. Tickets and updates are on AddamsFest.com.

The Rialto exhibit's last day is Sunday, October 25. After that, the lobby goes back to pre-construction events until work starts in 2027.

Changes to a downtown like the Rialto's funding, the new tenants on Quimby, and the open question on Elm Street shape how a neighborhood feels from one year to the next. If you are wondering how this season's changes affect your own home, Karen Canniffe can walk you through it. Request a complimentary home valuation.