For the better part of two years, the Safavieh furniture store on Route 22 West sat there with the lights off, a landmark by way of absence. Drivers heading toward the I-287 ramp used it as a marker: past the Honda dealership, past the empty lot that used to be Gannett and the Courier News, there's the dark storefront, and the interchange is just after that. Bridgewater Township Planning Board member Henry Wang said the site had "not been a booming business except for a couple furniture stores" in the years before it closed. That's about to change, and not in the direction most people would have guessed.
What's landing on that stretch of Route 22, and on the parallel run of Route 202 a few minutes away, isn't a random restock of empty storefronts. The buildings that sat vacant longest are getting the most ambitious replacements, and the businesses that needed the least construction got approved the fastest, sometimes in a single meeting. A few needed over a year of hearings for something as simple as a drive-thru lane. The pattern says something about how this corridor actually works, and it's worth knowing before you're sitting at the light on Morgan Lane wondering what's finally going up.
A furniture store becomes a golf clubhouse
The Safavieh building closed in September 2025. The following month, the Bridgewater Township Planning Board unanimously approved an application from The Clubhouse of Somerset County LLC to turn the 1213 Route 22 West space into an indoor golf, bar, and restaurant concept, an existing brand with a location in Fairfield. The plan calls for 12 golf simulator suites, ten on the first floor and two VIP suites on the second, plus multiple bar and dining areas, a membership lounge, private event rooms, a conference room, and a rear patio for socializing between rounds. The parking lot is being reconfigured to grow from 108 spaces to 140.
Attorney Michael Silbert, representing the applicant, called it a chance to bring "a modern, high-quality, low-impact use" to a building that had struggled to keep a tenant. Board members agreed without much debate. Councilman Michael Kirsh told the applicant that people were "already talking about this in a positive way," which tracks with how visible that dark storefront had become over two years of daily commutes.
The Ruby Tuesday lot took the long way, then moved fast
A few minutes south on Route 202, Chick-fil-A opened its first Bridgewater location on June 4, 2026, on the site of a long-vacant former Ruby Tuesday at 754 Route 202. The Planning Board had approved the application back in January 2025. Construction didn't start until November 2025, and the restaurant hired 100 full- and part-time team members ahead of opening. Local owner-operator Paul Daniels, who spent more than two decades with the chain and helped bring it into New York City earlier in his career, chose Bridgewater as the place he wanted to raise his own family. On opening day, the restaurant hosted a "Moove-In Party" and gave a free entree to anyone who showed up in cow print, along with a $25,000 donation to Feeding America marking the launch.
That's a year and a half between approval and opening day, which is a normal runway for ground-up construction. The lot had sat empty long enough that the gap barely registered as a delay to anyone who'd stopped expecting anything there.
The Gannett lot gets walls
Between the former Safavieh building and the Honda dealership on Route 22 West sits a lot that's been empty since Gannett and the Courier News left. In April 2025, the Planning Board approved a plan to build a Land Rover dealership there, the luxury brand's second Somerset County location. The building will run about 24,831 square feet, single story, with a showroom, offices, and a service center with 11 bays. It's the kind of project that takes a while to show up above ground, so residents who've watched that lot sit flat for years should expect a stretch of visible construction before there's a building to react to.
A coffee drive-thru took longer than the golf complex
Here's the part that doesn't fit the "vacant lot needs occupant" story as cleanly. A Starbucks proposed for 1298 Route 22, right next to Stone Tavern near Morgan Lane and the I-287 south ramp, needed 16 months of hearings before the Zoning Board of Adjustment approved it in June 2025. The delay wasn't about the coffee. It was about traffic and safety concerns on Route 22 and Morgan Lane, with the applicant returning multiple times to adjust the site plan, at one point dropping a planned Route 22 entrance altogether. The approved design has 46 seats and 31 parking stalls.
Compare that to the Clubhouse, an indoor golf and dining complex with a full commercial kitchen and 12 golf bays, cleared in a single unanimous vote. The difference wasn't ambition. It was where the driveway sits relative to a state highway. Anyone who's tried to make a left turn out of that stretch of Route 22 during rush hour already knows why a board would spend a year and a half on it.
Stone Tavern, the eventual Starbucks's future next-door neighbor, is already open in the former Houlihan's space at 1288 Route 22, serving wood-fired pizza and steaks with a full bar and rotating tap list.
The Route 22 corridor, before and after
| Address | What was there | What's arriving |
|---|---|---|
| 1213 Route 22 West | Safavieh furniture store (closed September 2025) | The Clubhouse: 12 golf simulator suites, bar, restaurant |
| 1298 Route 22 | Vacant lot near Morgan Lane | Starbucks drive-thru, approved June 2025 |
| Route 22 West, between former Safavieh and Honda | Gannett / Courier News offices | Land Rover dealership, approved April 2025 |
| 754 Route 202 | Ruby Tuesday | Chick-fil-A, opened June 4, 2026 |
| 1288 Route 22 | Houlihan's | Stone Tavern, already open |
The retail side isn't standing still either
The same churn is showing up in Bridgewater's shopping centers, just with shorter timelines because there's less to build. At Bridgewater Towne Center off Route 202, Skechers is moving into the space that sat empty since The Children's Place closed in January 2020, next to Harmon Face Values. A company spokesperson told Patch in late 2025 the estimated opening was early 2026, though subject to change. A few doors down, Barrio Burrito Bar announced in May 2026 that it would open its first New Jersey location at 726 Route 202, in the former Smoothie King between European Wax Center and Great Clips, with no opening date set at the time.
At The Village at Bridgewater Commons, Millburn Deli opened its newest location in 2025, a homecoming of sorts: owner Andrew Morgan is a Basking Ridge resident who grew up going to the mall as a teenager. And on Route 28 near the Somerville Circle, crews were converting the former Buy Buy Baby into a 32,000-square-foot Indian supermarket as of late 2025, promising "fresh produce, authentic Indian groceries" and a full grocery experience for the area.
None of these were quick swaps. The Children's Place space alone sat dark for roughly six years before Skechers signed on. When a space goes vacant that long in a shopping center this visible, whatever fills it tends to arrive with more square footage, more staff, or more ambition than what left, not less.
If you've been driving Route 22 or Route 202 for the past year wondering what was finally happening behind the construction fencing, the answers are specific now, tied to addresses and approval dates instead of guesswork. The corridor didn't get quieter. It got more legible.
Watching how a town's commercial corridors get rebuilt tells you almost as much about a place as its housing stock does. If you're curious what any of this shift means for property values nearby, or just want a second set of eyes on what's happening in your own corner of Bridgewater, Brown & McCrea is always glad to talk it through.
