Berkeley Heights has two downtowns this fall, and they are at different stages. Springfield Avenue is two days away from a free Fall Festival on nearby Snyder Avenue, with pumpkin painting and a petting zoo. The Park's new District is open in part, with six storefronts operating and a brewery, a steakhouse and a Mexican restaurant still to come.

The District at The Park was announced back in March with a list of new names: a Derek Jeter apparel flagship, a Mexican restaurant with a taqueria window, a speakeasy with duckpin bowling. Six months later, the first storefronts are open and the larger concepts are still on their way. The mix of open storefronts and planned concepts gives a picture of the District's progress this fall.

What's Actually Open at The District Right Now

The Park is the 185-acre former Connell Corporate Park, an office campus The Connell Company has been reworking since 2019 as part of a $500 million redevelopment into what it calls a destination neighborhood. The centerpiece is The District at The Park, a 60-acre stretch along District Drive built around a walkable Main Street, eventually 160,000 square feet of retail and dining plus 328 apartments split between two new buildings, RT500 and RT600.

Six tenants opened there starting in July: Four Spoons Ice Cream Company, Doner Shack, Cafe Exchange, Prime IV Hydration & Wellness, a second Dogtopia location, and the flagship store for Greatness Wins, the apparel brand co-founded by Chris Riccobono, Derek Jeter and Misty Copeland. Boschetto, the Montclair Italian restaurant opening a second, nearly 3,600-square-foot location at The Park, was announced alongside them but hasn't posted an opening date.

Six storefronts are open, while four announced concepts are still awaiting opening. The apartments, ice cream shop, dog daycare and apparel store are part of the development; the brewery, bowling alley and steakhouse are still planned.

What's Still to Come at The District

Emberside Brewery's own site says it plainly: coming November 2026. The brewery is being led by Tom Nielsen, who spent two decades at Sierra Nevada Brewing and helped develop beers including Torpedo Ale and Hazy Little Thing before The Connell Company hired him as director of brewery operations. Emberside previewed its beer lineup at a tap takeover at Grain & Cane, an existing Park venue, back in January, which means the brand has been introducing itself to Berkeley Heights since January, ahead of its own opening.

Rosa Azul and BASH were announced in the same March release, both slated for fall openings. Rosa Azul is planned as a Mexican restaurant with a casual taqueria window serving an outdoor garden and playground. BASH is the more ambitious of the two, a speakeasy-style venue combining a wood-fired steakhouse, multiple bars including a hi-fi listening bar, and what's being marketed as New Jersey's first duckpin bowling lanes. Neither has opened as of this writing.

So the wave of restaurants and entertainment concepts that generated coverage in trade outlets like Real Estate NJ this spring is, in practical terms, still mostly a fall and winter story. If you've been waiting to try the duckpin bowling, you're waiting alongside everyone else.

Springfield Avenue Didn't Pause for Any of This

None of this has interrupted Berkeley Heights' established Main Street, the stretch of Springfield Avenue between Snyder and Plainfield, which has kept running its own fall calendar the whole time. Delicious Heights, Hop Hing Chinese Restaurant, Neelam, Ami Sushi, Bubbakoo's Burritos and the original Dogtopia location near CVS are all still there, doing what they've done for years.

The newest addition to that strip isn't at The Park at all. G. DeLuca & Sons, a masonry company that's been a fixture in nearby Scotch Plains, took over the former Deans Greens Garden Nursery & Floral Center space on Snyder Avenue and quickly became a presence at township events, handing out s'mores at last year's Winter Walk. On Saturday, October 3, the company hosts its second annual Fall Festival at 295 Snyder Ave from noon to 3 p.m., free and open to the public, with live music, food vendors, pumpkin painting, face painting, balloon animals and a petting zoo with goats, sheep and rabbits. Rain pushes it to Sunday.

Back in June, the Berkeley Heights Business and Civic Association's annual Summer Block Party filled Springfield Avenue with close to 100 vendors, food trucks and a debut rock climbing wall and Hi-Striker strength game. The event fills the avenue from Snyder to Plainfield for an afternoon.

The Park Is Supporting Springfield Avenue Events

The Park and several of its businesses are helping fund these events. The presenting sponsors of this year's Summer Block Party included G. DeLuca & Sons, ABA Behavior Services, Primrose School of Berkeley Heights, Fieldhouse and The Park itself. The same pattern shows up at Winter Walk, where 2025's presenting sponsors were Embassy Suites by Hilton Berkeley Heights, Fieldhouse Gym and Grain & Cane, all Park properties, all writing checks for an event that happens entirely on the township's older Main Street.

The connection extends beyond sponsorships. Winter Walk drew thousands last December for an artificial ice rink, horse and carriage rides, life-size snow globes and a visit from Santa on Springfield Avenue, and if the schedule holds the way it has in past years, the 2026 version will land in early December.

This fall, Berkeley Heights has a Main Street with its traditions in place and a new District adding openings one storefront at a time. The Fall Festival at 295 Snyder Ave is this Saturday, October 3, and Emberside Brewery is scheduled to open in November.

If you're curious how a $500 million build-out like The Park tends to ripple into interest around a town's older streets, Karen Canniffe has been watching Berkeley Heights closely and is glad to talk through what it's actually doing to the neighborhood.