The state of NJ is advancing a plan to redevelop LSP
The more controversial parts of the plan would develop 100 acres, including:
A 150,000-square-foot community center on the park’s northern end that would include an Olympic-sized swimming pool, several ice rinks, indoor basketball courts, and community rooms.
An open-air, three-season market on seven acres where a train shed now exists. The public is now barred from that area because of contamination, but the plan would remediate the site.
Eight athletic fields for sports like football, lacrosse, and rugby, with nearby concessions.
A 5,000-seat amphitheater/stadium for tournaments.
Thirty acres of active recreation space for basketball courts, baseball/softball fields, a skate park, a 2,500-seat track and field facility, and an open-air amphitheater in a “natural grass bowl” with views of the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan.
Ten acres for community agriculture.
The plan also calls for environmental improvements to protect the park from flooding:
Putting oyster beds on the banks and outer shores to protect the park from wave action.
Opening a now-inaccessible 100-acre cove on the south side to kayaks and other water recreation.
Remediating a 235-acre contaminated area in the middle of the park that’s now fenced off from the public.
Yeah, this is not the way to go. This is all under the influence of a certain billionaire, Paul Fireman, who owns the Liberty National golf course next door. His plan is to allow privatization of the state park so it would allow him to bulldoze a nature preserve for 2 or 3 extra holes on his golf course - which of course isn’t shown on that rendering. This rendering has never been seen by anyone until it happened to coincide with the introduction of that bill.
Please support the “Liberty State Park Protection Act” which would move forward with all the community led efforts to open the interior of the park for passive recreational use, and ban large scale privatization of the interior of the park like in that rendering. I know my post reads like an ad, but for those who live and use the park actively, the last thing it needs are giant stadiums. The park definitely needs help, but turning it into this will not make it better.
The developer is only interested in expanding their golf course and destroying the park. This a slow motion tragedy that a future generation will probably have to undo.
In the lot plan from that article, lot #2 was recently cleared. It used to be a bunch of smaller lots, all covered in trees. Passed by this afternoon and it’s cleared for construction now.
This area is just really ripe for development so that’s exciting.
I went to the Open House. It’s going to look amazing, super happy with the results here. Especially the announcement they’ll finally renovate the train yard!
