Greenwich's Train Station Block Is Finished. Its Storefronts Aren't Yet.

Stand on the Railroad Avenue sidewalk in front of the Greenwich train station on a weekday morning and most of the station works as promised. The renovated lobby is open. The elevator from the lobby down to street level runs. The Steamboat Road staircase to the platform is back in use. A few steps away, the large corner space at Steamboat Road still has no restaurant in it, and no one has said who will run one.

That split is how the block looked at the end of October. Greenwich Crossing is the Ashforth Company's roughly $30 million redevelopment of the station and its retail at 2–34 Railroad Avenue. Most of the commuter side was done by midsummer. The parts that would give someone a reason to stay are on a slower schedule, and some of them now come with conditions attached.

The commuter side arrived in stages through the summer

Unlike most Metro-North stations, Greenwich's station is privately owned and maintained, through a public-private partnership between the Town of Greenwich and the Ashforth Company. That explains why the developer's own construction log is the best record of when each piece came back:

1. January 30, 2026. The renovated station reopened.
2. June 8. The new elevator inside the station opened to the public before 9 a.m. The developer said the work had been done for more than two months while it waited for a state inspection and certification.
3. June 11. The Railroad Avenue sidewalk reopened from Arch Street to Steamboat Road, with occasional closures in front of the restaurant space while work finished.
4. Early August. The Steamboat Road staircase reopened after Metro-North finished emergency repairs on the Grand Central-bound Track 3 platform. That platform work was separate from Greenwich Crossing.
5. September 2. The developer said it was on the last step, collecting permit signoffs and Certificates of Occupancy from the Town. Its FAQ gives October 2026 as the expected completion date.

The FAQ lists station hours as 4:45 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday and 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends. It names Citibank and Signature Cycles as the businesses that stayed open through construction, with entrances off the station lobby. Some retail space in the new building was still empty at the start of October. A Planning & Zoning commissioner mentioned the vacancies at a hearing.

The food is on a 2027 clock

The biggest signed tenant so far is Kneads Bakery Café. Chef Daniel Moreno and his wife Brittany own it, and its in-house stone mill grinds 100% organic whole grain flour every day for the breads and pastries. Kneads will have two spaces: about 2,000 square feet of street-front retail on Railroad Avenue, and a 200-square-foot counter on the station's second floor. The station counter will serve brewed coffee from Irving Farm beans, ground daily, plus grab-and-go food for commuters. The Railroad Avenue café adds breakfast, sandwiches, soups and salads. Greenwich will be its third location, after the original Westport café that opened in 2020 and a Fairfield location on the Post Road due to open in October.

The developer expects both Kneads spaces to open in late spring 2027. So the first coffee you can buy inside the renovated station is still several months away, more than a year after the station itself reopened.

The corner restaurant's first year comes with conditions

The bigger open question is the restaurant space at Steamboat Road and Railroad Avenue. It was approved for 112 seats in 2023. At a hearing reported around October 1, the applicant, GP Holding Company Inc., asked to go to 150 seats: 130 in the dining room and 20 at the bar. Its representative, Michelle Cronin, told the commission that no restaurant with national prominence would take the space at the smaller size. The applicant's restaurant leasing consultant, Joyce Storm, said opening a restaurant now takes millions of dollars in capital, and the goal was "a really strong operator who has the capital and ability, first to build it out, and then to operate."

First Selectman Camillo backed the request. The Greenwich Free Press reported that he told the commission:

"From a Town perspective, we would love to see this get done and we can have that whole block transformed and continue the walk of a beautiful new Greenwich Avenue to the waterfront, and this is a connector."

Commissioners spent most of the hearing on traffic, not seat counts. The same report quotes Commissioner Mary Jenkins describing double-parking and queuing on Railroad Avenue as "really bad now," even with storefronts still empty. The applicant's traffic consultant, John Canning, said about 94% of 33 Greenwich Avenue retailers surveyed close by 6 p.m., while restaurant demand peaks around 8 p.m. on Saturdays. The applicant also said Greenwich Police had not supported adding a drop-off lane on Railroad Avenue.

The commission approved the 150 seats 5-0, with conditions. The restaurant can't hold special events for its first 12 months, or during the Chamber of Commerce's July sidewalk sales. After a year, the applicant must come back to P&Z with data that includes:

• how full the western parking lot gets
• queuing back onto Railroad Avenue
• accidents at the parking driveway
• how many of the seats are actually used
• the volume of pickups and deliveries
• a new, wider traffic and intersection parking study
• any comments on ADA access or interventions from the Department of Public Works

Whoever signs for the corner will open knowing its first year of operations is the record P&Z will review. As of late October, no operator has been named.

Parking is meant to move off the street

The parking plan rests on the former Hopscotch lot. The applicant proposed managed valet there, run by Propark, starting at 10 a.m. daily and free with validation. Restriping would take the lot from 36 self-park spaces to as many as 57 attended spaces. Dedicated employee spaces in the Greenwich Plaza garage would rise from 9 to 20, with 11 reserved for restaurant staff. Cronin said takeout and delivery drivers would be pointed into that lot and could pick up orders through a rear corridor, so they wouldn't stop on Railroad Avenue. At the hearing, all of this was still described as a plan, not something already running.

There's a reason parking here works differently from the rest of downtown. The station opened in 1838, before cars, and most Railroad Avenue businesses have historic exemptions from parking requirements.

Across the street, the openings are also pending

The other side of Railroad Avenue is changing too, and it's no further along.

The Greenwich Sentinel reported in April that restaurateur Antoine Blech is opening Le Sauvage, with his son Adrien Blech as executive chef and partner. Greenwich Time covered the Taco Project approval, which includes eight parking spaces behind the building. Thai Basil and Plaza Restaurant are also on the block.

Up Greenwich Avenue, the record is mixed. Cucina Angelina, an 88-seat restaurant inside RH at the former Ralph Lauren building at 265 Greenwich Avenue, opened recently. Kyma, approved in 2022 for more than 200 seats at Lewis Street and Liberty Way, is going ahead. The 210-seat restaurant approved in 2024 for 1–3 Greenwich Avenue at Pickwick Plaza has not.

The intersection is funded but not scheduled

The last piece is the intersection where Railroad Avenue, Greenwich Avenue, Bruce Park Avenue and Steamboat Road meet. On September 28, the Representative Town Meeting voted 165-11, with one abstention, to approve $799,200 for new traffic signals there. The project covers pedestrian crossings and ADA improvements as well as the signals. A state Community Connectivity Grant pays for up to $657,653 of construction, about 82% of the cost, and the remaining $141,547 covers work outside the grant's scope. The Town's grant paperwork includes an estimated schedule that put the start of construction at August 1, 2026, a date that has already passed. The same packet lists more administrative steps before the project can go out to bid, and no confirmed start date has been announced since the September vote.

A block away, construction is underway at Chilston Court on Mason Street, a 78-unit development in two buildings on the former Honda dealership site.

If you're trying to judge how the station block's next year could change downtown, for a home near the Avenue or a move you're planning, Angela Alfano can go through what has opened and what is still pending, and how that affects your plans. Book a Consultation.