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Forrestal Village

shopping mall in New Jersey, United States

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ5470536
Source-derived summary

Forrestal Village is a 720,000-square-foot (67,000 m2), 52-acre (210,000 m2) mixed-use retail and office complex in Plainsboro Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey, along U.S. Route 1. Despite being in Plainsboro it has a Princeton address. It is just north of Princeton University's Forrestal campus and is named for James Forrestal. The center is anchored by Can Do Fitness (a chain of fitness centers in the northeast) and a Westin hotel. In recent years, it has suffered a sharp decline, turning into a dead mall. Renovations and rebranding as an office complex are underway to draw customers. The center has spawned some development in the area, including an adjacent office complex and several apartment and condo communities, including Princeton Windrows, which is right across the street.

Princeton Forrestal Village is designated for Office, Medical, Research, Education, Dwellings, Industrial and Commercial development.

History

Princeton Forrestal Village broke ground in 1986 on land leased from Princeton University, at U.S. Route 1 and College Farm Road. A cloverleaf interchange was completed at the intersection to ease the congestion of the then-planned center.

Editorial summary

“Forrestal Village” enters the record as shopping mall in New Jersey, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Forrestal, Village and shopping can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1986—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1986. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Forrestal, Village and shopping.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Forrestal Village” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Forrestal, Village and shopping provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5470536. Authority coordinates are 40.356, -74.612. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Forrestal Village”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Forrestal Village primary sources, Forrestal Village archive and Forrestal research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Forrestal Village”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Forrestal Village” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.