Livingston Mall

Livingston Mall is a two-level shopping mall located in Livingston, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The mall has a gross leasable area of 968,820 sq ft (90,006 m²). Located near the Passaic River close to neighboring Morris County, it serves customers from Essex, Morris and Union counties. The mall is anchored by Barnes & Noble.

The mall was still open in early February 2026, but with the numbers of shoppers diminishing and key anchors planning to close, the mall has been described as a "zombie mall" that was "quiet, dim and stripped of the crowds" during the holiday shopping season, making the mall seem "basically dead".

Livingston Mall was planned in the late 1960s and opened for business in stages starting with Bamberger's in 1971, followed by the mall proper itself in 1972 with additional anchor stores Sears and Hahne & Company. The mall benefited from the migration of population in Northern New Jersey to suburban and exurban areas, and the exodus of shoppers and stores from downtown Newark, once Northern New Jersey's premiere shopping destination, but that had been in serious decline since the July 1967 race riots. Both Bamberger's and Hahne & Co. had massive flagship stores in downtown Newark at the time of the mall opening. Sears also had a store on Elizabeth Avenue in Newark's once popular South Ward.

In 1986, the Bamberger's store transformed into Macy's. Around this time the M. Epstein store was converted to an annex for Macy's. In 1989, Hahne's gave way to Lord & Taylor when its parent company, which owned both banners, decided to retire the Hahne's brand.

The dawn of the early 2020s saw several traditional department store retailers update their brick-and-mortar formats after being encroached upon to a degree by several digital retailers in addition to the COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2020, Sears announced that it would shutter as part of an ongoing decision to eliminate its traditional brick-and-mortar format. In August 2020, Lord & Taylor said that it would be closing the Livingston Mall location as one 24 stores nationwide as a direct result of the pandemic. The Livingston location was one of them.

A plan for the 50-year-old Livingston Mall to be refreshed was authorized by the Livingston Township in March 2021. In March 2025, the Township Council adopted a plan for the mall to be redeveloped as high-density housing.

On January 6, 2026, it was announced that Barnes & Noble would be moving to the nearby Livingston Shopping Center by mid-to-late 2027. On January 8, 2026, Macy's announced that it would be closing as part of a plan to close 14 stores by the end of the first quarter, describing the location as "underproductive".

On February 10, 2026, the mall was temporarily closed due to a burst pipe, with “temporarily closed” notices posted on the entrances, along with a banner alert on the mall’s website reading “Livingston Mall is temporarily closed. You can still shop at Macy's and Barnes & Noble; both are OPEN with regular hours”. According to a post by Hidden Treasures on Facebook from February 17, stores had to remain closed the following week “due to an ongoing maintenance issue involving a burst pipe in the Livingston Mall”. It remains unclear when or if the mall will reopen.