Both Southernside Bridges Are Back. Here's the Easy Way Into The Commons This Fall.

For the first fall since Hurricane Helene, both of Southernside's crossings into Unity Park are open. SCDOT reopened the South Hudson Street bridge over the Reedy River by February 2026. The Willard Street bridge on the park's west side followed on Aug. 7. The reopenings came while The Commons, the food hall at 147 Welborn St., was dealing with a problem its tenants say is keeping diners away. The problem is parking.

Put those two facts together and the slowdown at The Commons looks like a driving problem. The routes in from Southernside now go around it.

Two Crossings, Back in Service

Both bridges were damaged by Helene in late September 2024. They closed and reopened at different times, which is why this October is the first month in two years with both open.

The Hudson timeline slipped a little. The 2025 plan called for a July start, but a January 2026 Greenville Journal report said work actually began in August 2025. By May 20, 2026, WSPA reported that all four SCDOT bridge replacements in Greenville and Spartanburg counties were open to traffic. The Greenville News describes Hudson Street as the road linking Southernside homes to A.J. Whittenberg Elementary, with Unity Park in between.

The Willard Street bridge is the older of the two connections. It was built in 1950 as a direct link between West Greenville and Southernside. While it was out this spring and summer, drivers detoured along West Washington, Hudson and Mayberry streets. The replacement bridge, redesigned with Greenville-based Michael Baker International, has a path wide enough for people walking and biking at the same time. The city's Willard Street bridge project page has the details.

The Lot Everyone Circles

Here is what the bridges help you avoid. The Greenville Journal reported on Aug. 28 that cars have become "a common sight" circling the lot outside The Commons on Welborn Street, row by row, while the other lots around the 60-acre park have room.

Unity Park has six free lots with 729 spaces between them. The Welborn lot beside the food hall holds 308, or about 42 percent of the total. The other 421 spaces are spread across five lots:

• Meadow Street Lot 1: 117 spaces
• Meadow Street Lot 2: 33 spaces
• Hudson Street Lot: 93 spaces
• Mayberry Street Lot 1: 96 spaces
• Mayberry Street Lot 2: 82 spaces

Three of those lots, with 271 spaces combined, are on Hudson and Mayberry streets. Those are the same streets that carried the Willard detour this summer.

Four groups compete for the Welborn spaces: park visitors, Swamp Rabbit Trail users, Commons customers and Commons employees. Restaurants need cars to turn over. Trail users and park visitors can stay for hours. City staff have counted every lot twice a day for several months. Bill Foster, the city's parking administrator, said people naturally look for the closest space, "but it doesn't mean that there's not parking available."

The tenants feel it. Ed Buffington, co-owner of The Community Tap, said the taproom inside the food hall has the lowest sales of the company's three Greenville County locations. "Now that the perception is out there that there's no parking, that's our reality," he told the Journal. Nick Thomas of Automatic Taco said parking is "not as bad as it seems if you understand how to navigate it." He added that customers at his newer second location tell him they're glad to skip the trip to The Commons. That second location is at 1501 E. North St.

The city is responding in small steps. One row of the Welborn lot now has a two-hour limit, and Foster said more two-hour spaces could follow if the parks department thinks they would help. Commons employees are asked to use the Meadow Street overflow lots. Visitors staying at the park or on the trail for hours are asked to use the other five lots, and new wayfinding signs are in the works. Will Young, the city's director of parks, recreation and tourism, summed it up: "If you're coming to the restaurants, go to the main lot. If you can't find it, there's plenty of other options." The Welborn lot is usually busiest in the morning and early afternoon, and Foster expected more open spaces as summer ended. The city's current lot map is on its Getting Here and Parking page.

Every one of those fixes is about where a car ends up. With Hudson and Willard both open again, a trip from Southernside doesn't need a parking space at all.

Who's Cooking Under the Two Roofs Now

The Commons has more than 20 food, retail and business tenants and is majority-owned by Aston Properties. The food and drink names in the current directory:

1. Automatic Taco, creative tacos that change with the seasons
2. GB&D, with burgers, fried-chicken sandwiches, salads, craft cocktails and house-made desserts
3. Paseo, Spanish-Mediterranean tapas, pintxos and montaditos, with wine and sangria
4. Indigo Kitchen, Indian street food with vegetarian and non-vegetarian options
5. Kuka Juice, cold-pressed juices, smoothies, smoothie bowls, salads and sandwiches
6. LaRue's, a sweets counter for cookie-and-ice-cream sandwiches, soft-serve, cookies and fine chocolate
7. Methodical Coffee and Methodical Bakery, for coffee, croissants, danishes and baguettes
8. The Community Tap, a beer-and-wine bottle shop and taproom

The lineup has changed over the past year. GB&D announced in November 2025 that it would move back into its original full-service space at The Commons. MooHogz Craft BBQ, which opened its Commons storefront in summer 2024, announced on Feb. 20, 2026 that it had closed for good. Vendor pages don't always list current hours, so check with each counter before a weeknight visit.

Thursdays and Fridays on the Trail-Side Porch

The best reason to arrive on foot this month starts at 5 p.m. The Commons' free, all-ages Live & Local on the Porch series runs 5 to 8 p.m. every Thursday and Friday in October, with a different artist each week. The stage is the porch on the Swamp Rabbit Trail side of the building, so it faces the trail you would walk or bike in on. Shows move indoors if the weather turns.

Eight dates remain this month:

The 5 p.m. start comes after the Welborn lot's busiest stretch, which the city puts in the morning and early afternoon. Even so, a show that brings people out for three hours is the kind of evening when cars circle the main lot.

One Item on the Oct. 26 Agenda

There's one more Unity Park item to watch this month. On Oct. 1, the Greenville Planning Commission recommended that City Council deny a rezoning on the north side of the park, off a city-owned right-of-way that runs west from Meadow Street. The proposal calls for 17 townhomes, six to eight of them affordable, plus a boardwalk connection. Council's first reading is scheduled for Oct. 26. The Meadow Street lots are where the city sends Commons employees, so anything planned on that edge of the park is worth following.

Here at The Gallo Company, we track the small changes, like a reopened bridge, a two-hour parking row or a council reading, that shape everyday life around Unity Park. If you'd like to talk through how those changes affect Southernside and the streets around it, our team is a short walk away.