The End of America's First Outlets
Big change underway in sleepy Flemington, New Jersey
If you lived in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, maybe even Delaware and Connecticut in the 1980s or ’90s, there’s a good chance you were aware of Liberty Village in Flemington, New Jersey, considered the nation’s first major outlet mall.
Despite once being an incredibly popular shopping destination, Liberty Village began to empty out and fall apart more than a decade ago. I don’t know the details of its slow decline, but it seems to have been a combination of poor management, the rise of e-commerce, and competition from much larger and more modern outlet centers.
After being sold in 2019, it sat mostly empty, and nothing much happened. But a new plan was announced recently to redevelop it into multifamily housing, possibly with some retail and services mixed in.
I’ll be writing a second post about Liberty Village in a few days, with some of my own memories and a little more about the site’s history and the new proposal. But today, I wanted to share some pictures.
Over the last few years I’ve walked through Liberty Village several times. Each visit, there’s one less store, more overgrown grass, more missing bricks or broken windows. It’s pretty dismal, but it’s also kind of cool—despite only one or two stores still operating, it’s still completely open to the public. Walking around there is like being in a zombie movie. The part of me that likes exploring old places loves it. There are often other people walking around, treating as a walking path. It’s weird, and neat.
Here’s what it looks like. Just imagine these walkways jammed with people, almost like sidewalks in New York City. (By the way, the vending machine in one of the photos is turned off, but the snacks have been left inside!)
I’ll be telling you more about this place in part 2!
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Creepy!