Margaret Sorensen first moved to Livermore in 1929.
The 3-year-old at the time was one of just under 3,000 residing in town, she said.
Today, the 86-year-old Sorensen is amazed at how far her once "little cow town" has come along.
"What a change," Sorensen said Thursday at the Paragon Outlets Livermore Valley grand opening. "This is just so awesome. I'm just sitting here in awe."
The new outlets center is the latest attraction to the Livermore Valley, which already boasts a deep wine country, a thriving downtown and a booming technology hub.
Livermore Mayor John Marchand says the outlets brings in more than 3,000 jobs to the area.
"It encourages people to shop local and keep dollars in their community," he said.
Shoppers arrive early
Livermore-resident Gerald Yano has been waiting for the opening since officials broke ground on the shopping center in August 2011.
Yano was one of many shoppers who headed to the outlets early Thursday morning. He plans to take advantage of the special sales offered at the grand opening.
"This is big for Livermore," he said smiling. "I can't wait."
C.J. Robinson of Antioch and Sondra Robinson of Dublin also arrived early and were one of the first people in line at the Nike outlet.
They started standing in line at around 8:30 a.m. to get a water bottle and gift card Nike was giving out to the first few hundred shoppers.
By 9:30 a.m. the line to the Nike store wrapped around the corner and had more than 150 people.
Lines also began to form at the nearby Coach store.
The outlets feature , just off Interstate 580.
Traffic, traffic and more traffic
Days before Thursday's grand opening officials warned of heavy traffic expected in the area. Patch readers on our Facebook page reported traffic to be grid locked on Interstate 580 and the new Jack London Boulevard extension in Livermore to be backed up.
A traffic collision near the El Charro Road exit on the freeway also contributed to the delays, according to the CHP.
Some said it took more than 30 minutes to travel from one exit to another on Interstate 580.
"It's horrible," a Patch reader said.
It took 90 minutes for Patch Regional Editor Kari Hulac to get to the outlets center from Pleasanton.
Others decided to give up, turn back around and plan a visit another day.
CHP also issued a traffic alert due to the huge delays. Details here.
Share your photos and experience
Share your pictures at the grand-opening events here by clicking on the "Upload Photos and Videos" button on this post. Tell us what you're most excited for at the grand opening and share your experience visiting the new shopping center in the comments section below.
Store list and schedule of events
View a store list in the attached document. Here's a rundown of the scheduled grand-opening events this weekend:
Thursday, Nov. 8: Open 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.
- 10 a.m.: Champagne & Confetti Grand Opening Ceremony, near Food Court ·
- 10 a.m.: Paragon Outlets Livermore Valley opens with limited-time offers, merchant giveaways, prize sweepstakes and entertainment
- 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.: Diablo’s VIP Grand Opening Party, near Brooks Brothers Factory Store
Friday, Nov.9: Open 10 a.m. to midnight
- Limited-time offers, merchant giveaways, prize sweepstakes and entertainment
Saturday, Nov. 10: Open 10 a.m. to midnight
- Limited-time offers, merchant giveaways, prize sweepstakes and entertainment
- 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.: Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association’s Sunset, Sip & Shop event
Sunday, Nov. 11: Open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- Limited-time offers, merchant giveaways, prize sweepstakes and entertainment “Even before our grand opening shoppers have the opportunity to join our exclusive Privilege Club at www.paragonoutletsLV.com. Becoming a member entitles shoppers to a complimentary VIP Coupon Book worth hundreds of dollars in extra savings,” said Paragon Outlets Livermore Valley Assistant General Manager Dave Ackerman.
Can somebody enlighten me on where this money will go and how it will benefit our city? The 3,000 jobs created is pretty awesome already. I do hope that most of those folks are from here or from the nearby cities. But the revenue this mall will create for Livermore....... What exactly is it slated for at this point? I'm truly not intending to be a smart a** when I ask this question. I'm simply hoping that our schools will see some of it. Maybe one if our city council members can answer this question? I keep reading about how this mall will bring in money to our city ...... so how and where will that money be spent?
There was a time, like before 1995, where it exactly did mean that these shops were were one bought the "factory seconds" and even the closeouts that did not get sold at the retail level the previous year or two--like Nordstrom's Rack. But since the mid-1990s, "Outlet Mall" has taken on some other convoluted meaning, where basically the recession of the early-1990s had a lot of people changing their shopping habits from frequenting the malls and the high-end retail stores to going to the "Outlet" and as this trend became more popular, you had folks out there trying to package it into shopping centers like Great Mall out there in Milpitas. And then you also had chain stores out there also capitalizing on this trend, like Burlington Coat Factory and Ross/DD's Discount, where they also devoted themselves to the selling of factory seconds because the marketplace, especially when times are hard, also considers these worth something to acquire. And given the nature of retail where one can see high markups for the price of goods sold in these stores, it also gives the seller a great deal of room to make profits as well as even cut prices when people aren't buying what's being sold, to the point that you even discover that there is not much a price difference in what one buys at an "Outlet Store" vs. what one buys elsewhere.
When a business exists only to sell the goods that others manufactured for them, there has to be a markup of the price, where some people consider that selling the item at retail for 500% more than it cost to manufacture the product, pay for the labor and the transport to get it to the retailer so it could be sold to the consumer a good deal. However, the markup is designed so that if the retailer/reseller could not get that item to sell at the initial price to the consumer, they could mark the price down to the point where hopefully the product will sell and still make a profit because they marked up the price high enough to allow them to do that. So even if you are buying an item that was "marked down", chances are that you are still paying a price that still made money for that retailer/reseller, because the markup was already high to begin with. One of the fun things to look at when you are at places like Nordstrom's Rack is to look at all the pricetags on an item being sold there and the more pricetags you see, the more the item had to be marked down. And when you had stores out there like TJ Maxx, Ross and Burlington Coat Factory out there, that even bought what the chains could not sell when it was the "hot item" to have a year or two ago, it sort of set the pattern for the "Outlet Stores" we have today.
And who paid for all of the new infrastructure for this mall (roads, highway on and off ramps, water lines, sewer lines, electrical infrastructure, etc)? Is the city of Livermore paying a bunch of money to help get the outlets built? And who is going to pay for the extra highway maintenance required over the long term because of all the extra traffic (which causes the roads to need alot more work)? Bottom line: did the city of Livermore (ie, the people of Livermore) pay for the infrastructure to support this mall and also agree to not receive any tax money from the outlets for some long period of time?
I 110% agree with you on shopping and buying from locals , like the mom and pop stores...I grew up in Pleasanton/Livermore area and GOD how I long for a small , quaint , non -pretentious town/towns.....I'm a self employed person and I always go for the small businesses and hope they do the same when it comes to hiring my business......
After seeing so many people look for jobs for a long time, I'm most happy about those jobs created by Paragon. I don't like crowds. I don't like traffic, so I'm happy to wait a while to go see what it's like. And for those worried that it will always be this crowded, it may be February, but it will slow down.