Nullable date in Freemarker

This should also work

${(order.needByDate?date)!}

The parentheses are necessary

You can also add a default value such as "n/a" like this

${(order.needByDate?date)!"n/a"}

There may be a smarter way of doing this but the following should do the job.

<#if order.needByDate??>${order.needByDate?date}</#if>