The heart of downtown Gardiner, Water Street consists of many nineteenth-century brick buildings which were restored in the 1980s during a revival of the commercial district.
Specialty shops line the brick sidewalks with the minipark at midcourse.
The Gardiner railroad station, a building of brick and granite in French Renaissance style, erected in 1911, served the city for fifty years. Now on the National Register of Historic Places, through adaptive reuse it has recently served senior citizens. City Hall City government has conducted its business on this site since the 1830s. In 1969 this brick, steel, and glass structure was built for the city offices, police force, and fire department. This high level-fixed bridge built in 1978 replaced earlier bridges a quarter mile south of this site.