Cummings Research Park: Employers, Commutes & Where to Live

If your job offer says "Research Park" instead of "Redstone Arsenal," you'll work in Cummings Research Park (CRP). It's the second-largest research park in the U.S., with 3,843 acres, about 300 companies and roughly 26,000 employees, and it sits right across I-565 from the arsenal's main gate.^[1,2] This guide covers who's there, how CRP connects to Gate 9, and how long the drive is from each part of town.

Jump to the drive-time table · One spouse at CRP, one on post

What and where Cummings Research Park is

Size: 3,843 acres, 300+ companies and organizations, about 26,000 employees and more than 12,500 students, according to the park. CRP calls itself the second-largest research park in the country and the fourth-largest in the world.^[1,2]
History: it started in 1962 as Huntsville Research Park, from a brainstorming session between Wernher von Braun and local leaders. Brown Engineering, the forerunner of Teledyne Brown Engineering, was the first business in.^[3] It was renamed for Milton K. Cummings in 1973.^[1]
Two halves: CRP East is the original park around Sparkman Drive and Bradford Drive, home to the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), Calhoun Community College's Huntsville campus and the Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering. CRP West was added in 1982 and includes Adtran, Dynetics (now part of Leidos), the 152-acre HudsonAlpha biotech campus and Bridge Street Town Centre.^[1,4]
Next to the arsenal: Research Park Boulevard runs south through the park to I-565, and south of the interstate it becomes Rideout Road, which leads straight to Gate 9, the arsenal's main gate.^[5]

Major defense and aerospace employers in and near CRP

Below are big names with a verified address in the park, plus two large employers just outside it. Headcounts are the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber's July 2026 figures for each company's total local workforce at all its sites, not only its CRP office.^[6]

Employer	Where (CRP address unless noted)	Local employees (Chamber, 2026)
Northrop Grumman	301 Voyager Way NW (CRP)^[7]; also an R&D campus in Redstone Gateway, outside Gate 9^[8]	3,774
Boeing	Not in CRP. Main Huntsville site at 499 Boeing Blvd. SW^[9]; also the first tenant at Redstone Gateway, outside Gate 9^[8]	3,411
Leidos (including Dynetics)	1002 Explorer Blvd. NW, CRP West. Leidos bought Huntsville-based Dynetics in 2020.^[10,4]	3,019
SAIC	6723 Odyssey Dr. NW^[11]	2,746
University of Alabama in Huntsville	CRP East (an anchor of the park)^[1]	2,082
Lockheed Martin	4800 Bradford Dr. NW^[12]	1,878
Blue Origin	1100 Explorer Blvd. NW (rocket engine production)^[13]	1,600
Teledyne Brown Engineering	300 Sparkman Dr. NW; it traces back to Brown Engineering, the park's first business^[3,1]	832
L3Harris Technologies	950 Explorer Blvd. NW^[14]	787
Raytheon, an RTX business	401 Jan Davis Dr. NW^[15]	781
Adtran (telecom)	901 Explorer Blvd. NW^[16]	674
HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology	601 Genome Way NW, a 152-acre campus with more than 45 biotech companies^[17]	Not on the list

The park's own directory lists many more defense and engineering firms, including BAE Systems, Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI, Collins Aerospace, COLSA, General Dynamics Information Technology, General Dynamics Mission Systems, Kratos, MBDA and Anduril.^[18] Search open roles on our Huntsville and Redstone jobs page, which also covers clearances, veterans' preference and the military spouse hiring tools.

Redstone Gateway is a separate 468-acre office park on Army land just outside Gate 9, on Rideout Road south of I-565. Its largest tenants are the federal government, Yulista, Northrop Grumman, KBR and Boeing, and it had 44 tenants as of January 2025.^[8,19] If your offer letter says "Redstone Gateway," use the Gate 9 column in the table below.

Which Redstone gate is closest to Research Park?

Gate 9 on Rideout Road. It's at the south end of the Research Park Boulevard/Rideout Road corridor, and it's the only Redstone gate open 24/7.^[5,20] By our routing estimate, Gate 9 is about 7 minutes (3.8 miles) from CRP East and about 8 minutes (4.4 miles) from CRP West without traffic.^[21,22]

Gate 8 is on Goss Road (at Drake Avenue and Patton Road), not on Martin Road. It's open 1:45 to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 5:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends. The Martin Road gates are Gate 1 (East) and Gate 7 (West), and both switch to outbound only at 1:30 p.m.^[20] Hours change, so check our Redstone Arsenal gate hours by gate before you plan around any gate other than 9.

Traffic: where it backs up

I-565 at Research Park Boulevard and Gate 9. The Huntsville-area MPO's congestion plan ranks Research Park Boulevard from I-565 to US-72 third among the area's most congested corridors, and I-565 from I-65 to Wall Triana Highway fourth. It also says about 40% of all Redstone employees use Gate 9.^[5] The city says this stretch of I-565 carries more than 140,000 vehicles a day.^[23]
Bradford Drive between Explorer Boulevard and Wynn Drive, inside the park, made the same top-ten list.^[5]
Rideout Road carries more than 20,000 cars a day into Redstone, according to Redstone Gateway's developer.^[24] The garrison's deputy to the commander has said a planned interchange will relieve congestion on I-565 and the south end of Research Park Boulevard.^[19]

Road projects to watch

Resolute Way: phase 1 adds a direct connection from Madison Boulevard (I-565 Exit 13) to Redstone Gateway and Gate 9, plus about a mile of extra merge distance on eastbound I-565. As of its August 2026 update, the city expected construction to start in late 2027.^[25,23] Until then, plan around today's roads.
Arsenal East Connector: still in the corridor study phase. The city is working with Redstone Arsenal on an alignment.^[25]
Sparkman Drive bridge improvements: work was expected to start in late 2026 and take about 60 calendar days.^[25]

Commute and drive times to Research Park and Gate 9

Each row starts from a fixed, named point in the community, so your street could be a few minutes closer or farther. We used CRP West and CRP East as separate destinations because the park is large: by our routing estimate, driving from one side to the other takes about 7 minutes.^[21,22]

Drive times from a fixed point in each community to Cummings Research Park West (Explorer Blvd. at Leidos), CRP East (Sparkman Dr. at Teledyne Brown) and Redstone Arsenal Gate 9 (Rideout Rd.). "Off-peak" is the OSRM routing engine's estimate on OpenStreetMap data, computed October 25, 2026. "Rush hour" is our estimate, not a measurement: the off-peak time multiplied by 1.17 (low end) and 1.4 (high end), Huntsville's 2024 Commuter Stress Index and Freeway Planning Time Index from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Neither figure includes parking, the walk to your building, or the line at the gate.
Starting point	To CRP West		To CRP East		To Gate 9
Starting point	Off-peak	Rush hour (est.)	Off-peak	Rush hour (est.)	Off-peak	Rush hour (est.)
Madison (City Hall, Hughes Rd.)	≈13 min 5.8 mi	15–18 min	≈13 min 8.0 mi	15–18 min	≈12 min 6.8 mi	14–17 min
Monrovia (Census place center)	≈11 min 5.7 mi	13–15 min	≈13 min 7.1 mi	15–18 min	≈13 min 8.6 mi	15–18 min
Downtown Huntsville (Courthouse Square)	≈13 min 8.7 mi	15–18 min	≈7 min 4.7 mi	8–10 min	≈10 min 7.5 mi	12–14 min
Five Points (Huntsville)	≈14 min 8.9 mi	16–20 min	≈7 min 4.9 mi	8–10 min	≈11 min 7.7 mi	13–15 min
South Huntsville: Jones Valley (Jones Valley Elementary)	≈21 min 11.1 mi	25–29 min	≈15 min 7.1 mi	18–21 min	≈18 min 9.8 mi	21–25 min
Far South Huntsville (Grissom High School)	≈24 min 13.9 mi	28–34 min	≈18 min 9.9 mi	21–25 min	≈21 min 12.7 mi	25–29 min
Hampton Cove (Hampton Cove Elementary)	≈28 min 16.6 mi	33–39 min	≈22 min 12.6 mi	26–31 min	≈25 min 15.3 mi	29–35 min
Owens Cross Roads (town center)	≈34 min 22.0 mi	40–48 min	≈28 min 17.9 mi	33–39 min	≈31 min 20.7 mi	36–43 min
Harvest (Census place center)	≈19 min 13.1 mi	22–27 min	≈19 min 13.5 mi	22–27 min	≈20 min 14.8 mi	23–28 min
Meridianville (Census place center)	≈22 min 15.5 mi	26–31 min	≈18 min 13.3 mi	21–25 min	≈21 min 16.1 mi	25–29 min
Athens (Limestone County Courthouse)	≈30 min 19.6 mi	35–42 min	≈32 min 21.1 mi	37–45 min	≈33 min 22.6 mi	39–46 min
Decatur (City Hall)	≈32 min 23.4 mi	37–45 min	≈29 min 22.4 mi	34–41 min	≈27 min 21.2 mi	32–38 min

How the rush-hour range was built: the Texas A&M Transportation Institute's 2025 Urban Mobility Report gives Huntsville a 2024 Commuter Stress Index of 1.17 (peak-direction trips take about 17% longer than in free flow) and a Freeway Planning Time Index of 1.4 (on a bad day, the 95th percentile, budget about 40% more than free flow). Those are area-wide averages, not measurements of these routes. The worst spots, I-565 and the Gate 9 approach, can run longer than these ranges.^[26,21,22] Drive your actual route at your actual shift time before you sign a lease.

Reading the table:

Closest: Madison and Monrovia are closest to CRP West, and downtown Huntsville and Five Points are closest to CRP East and Gate 9 (all about 15 minutes or less off-peak).
South and southeast: from Jones Valley, Hampton Cove and Owens Cross Roads, our computed routes run through downtown on US-431 and I-565. That's about 15 to 35 minutes off-peak, depending on the starting point and which side of the park you're headed to.
Farther out: Athens and Decatur are about 27 to 33 minutes off-peak. Our computed route from Athens uses US-72, and the one from Decatur uses I-565.

If one spouse works at CRP and the other on post

Find out both buildings first. "On post" can mean anywhere on a large installation. Ask which gate the on-post spouse will use and when their shift starts and ends.
Lean toward the Gate 9 corridor. CRP and Gate 9 are only a few minutes apart, so a home that works for one usually works for both if the on-post job is reachable from Gate 9. From our table, Madison, Monrovia, downtown and Five Points are each within about 15 minutes of both CRP and Gate 9, off-peak.
Watch gate hours. Gate 9 is the only gate open 24/7, and Gate 8 is the only other gate with weekend hours. If the on-post spouse plans to use Gate 1, 3, 7 or 10, check when it closes or goes outbound-only.^[20]
Try staggering departures. The worst backups are on I-565 and Research Park Boulevard near Gate 9, so test-drive the commute at a couple of different departure times.^[5]
Check the school zone and the tax line too. Madison, Huntsville and the county have different school districts and property tax rates. See our schools guide and property tax by city.
Child care near work. If you'd like care near CRP instead of on post, the park's directory lists Bradford KinderCare and a Premier Preschools Research Park campus. For on-post centers, see Redstone Arsenal child care.^[18]

Living and eating near the park

Bridge Street Town Centre (CRP West) opened in 2007. It's an open-air center with more than 80 stores, restaurants and entertainment venues, including the market's only Apple Store and a 14-screen Cinemark. Tanger has owned it since 2023, and the Westin Huntsville hotel is part of the Bridge Street development.^[1,27,28] Bridge Street is about 5 minutes from Gate 9 by our routing estimate.^[21]
Apartments in the park: the first apartments in CRP opened in 2019 at Bridge Street (The Seleno, 240 units). Arcadia, CRP East's first mixed-use development with apartments over ground-floor retail, restaurants and offices, opened in late fall 2024.^[1,29]
Coming: UAH plans a mixed-use district with dining, entertainment and student housing on the former Executive Plaza site.^[29]

For towns, rents and home values, see best places to live near Redstone Arsenal. If you're still on orders, start with our PCS move guides.

Frequently asked questions

How big is Cummings Research Park?

3,843 acres, with about 300 companies and roughly 26,000 employees, according to the park. It calls itself the second-largest research park in the U.S.^[1,2]

Which Redstone Arsenal gate is closest to Research Park?

Gate 9 on Rideout Road. Research Park Boulevard becomes Rideout Road south of I-565 and leads directly to it, and it's open 24/7.^[5,20]

Is Boeing in Cummings Research Park?

Boeing's main Huntsville address is 499 Boeing Blvd. SW, outside the park, and it also leases space in Redstone Gateway just outside Gate 9.^[9,8]

How long is the commute from Madison to Research Park?

About 13 minutes off-peak from Madison City Hall to either side of the park by our routing estimate. At rush hour, plan on roughly 15 to 18 minutes, and allow more on a bad day on I-565.^[21,26]

When will Resolute Way open?

There's no opening date yet. As of August 2026, the City of Huntsville expected phase 1 construction to start in late 2027.^[25]

Sources

Facts on this page were checked against these sources on October 24, 2026. Rules, hours and figures change, so confirm with the official source before you act.

Cummings Research Park: defense employers, commutes and where to live