NJ state park will undergo a massive facelift starting this fall

🌳 One of NJ's most popular state parks will undergo a major facelift this fall

🌳 The revitalization will take about two and a half years to complete

🌳 It will create more space for kids to recreate and conserve natural resources

JERSEY CITY — Liberty State Park is getting a much-needed makeover.

A long-awaited three-phased revitalization plan was recently unveiled by Shawn LaTourette, commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Why the need to revitalize?

“Liberty State Park is one of the crown jewels of our state park system. But if we’re honest, it’s a rough-cut gem and it’s really in need of better fashioning,” LaTourette said.

It needs to be in tip-top shape to better serve residents, visitors, and the needs of the community of Jersey City that hosts the state park, he added.

For many years, about 40% of Liberty State Park has been off limits to the public because of historic contamination in this industrialized part of the state.

LaTourette said there is a fence smack in the middle of Liberty State Park that cuts off about 235 acres of the park from being accessed.

It's important to clean up that interior section so it will not only better integrate with the existing features of the park, but it will include even more amenities, as well, he said.

What will this do?

First, it will hopefully serve the needs of residents and communities around the park with more athletic opportunities.

Second, the goal is to better confront the changing climate and reduce the risk of extreme precipitation and flooding through the nature-based solutions that will be in that revitalized interior section of the park, LaTourette explained.

“When it’s complete, what the public will see is around 100 acres of outdoor, active recreational, athletic, arts, and cultural amenities all around the perimeter of Liberty State Park with a nature-based central park at its heart that provides greater flood resilience to the park and to the community,” LaTourette said.

What are project phases?

The revitalization of Liberty State Park will be broken up into three phases, dubbed Phase 1A, Phase 1B, and Phase 2.

Phase 1A, which will begin in September, is the cleanup, restoration, and resiliency of the building features of the park.

That means the 235 acres that are off limits to the public will be cleaned up. Nature-based solutions to flooding and climate change impacts will also be built during this first phase, LaTourette said.

While this is happening, LaTourette said Phase 1B will also commence. This is the development of immediate active recreation, arts, and cultural improvements of the park’s northern end.

Phase 2 will begin a long-term holistic master planning process for the southern end of the park.

All phases of the revitalization project will run on parallel tracks. The cleanup begins in September. That folds right into the construction of nature-based solutions for the interior section of the park for the first quarter of next year, LaTourette said.

That 230-acre interior piece will be completed and open to the public in the first quarter of 2026.

In two and a half years, the public will be able to access the entire park.

How is the park revitalization project being funded?

It is not cheap to revitalize a 600-acre state park.

But, LaTourette said luckily, through a number of polluter-pays lawsuits, where the DEP has pursued companies that have long polluted areas of New Jersey, including up in the same watershed as Liberty State Park, the state has recovered a substantial number of natural resources damages against folks who have polluted the state.

He said the state will be using a big chunk of that money in order to do the cleanup and the restoration.

There was also appropriated last year from the state fiscal recovery funds, $50 million to put towards this endeavor.

LaTourette said a continuing financial commitment is necessary to pursue each phase.
“But Phase 1A is fully funded and that’s where we’re sticking our shovels in the ground in September to begin,” he said.

LaTourette said he is happy that the project has received a lot of public support. There was some worry as to whether this project would both serve the needs of the communities, particularly the youth in this area of the state who need more places to recreate and engage in athletics, and at the same time, conserve our natural resources.

He believes the facelift plan shows that the state can, and in fact, are, doing both of those things at the same time.

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