Hudson Valley Mall

Hudson Valley Mall is an enclosed shopping mall located in Ulster, New York, north of Kingston, United States. It is the lone mall in Ulster County and is the only enclosed mall located between Poughkeepsie and Albany. Hull Property Group currently owns and operates Hudson Valley Mall. The mall opened in 1981 and has an area of 765704 sqft on one level with 19 shops and restaurants as well as a 12-screen Neighborhood Cinema Group theater. As of 2023, the mall maintains a Dick's Sporting Goods, and Target, as well as a handful of specialty stores. Adjacent to the mall is Hudson Valley Plaza, a two-tiered complex on a west-facing hill, consisting mainly of a Walmart, PetSmart and a few other shops.

History
The Hudson Valley Mall opened in October 1981 with a Kmart, JCPenney, Hess's, and a Hoyts six-screen theater named Cinema 6 (later expanded to 12 screens and renamed after Regal Cinemas bought the theater space at the mall).

An expansion during 1989 added a Sears to the east side of the mall as well as a new food court and approximately 15 other stores. The Sears store relocated from the Kingston Plaza to the Hudson Valley Mall during this expansion.

In 1995, Hess's, which filed for bankruptcy, vacated the mall and was replaced by Filene's the following year. Kmart also relocated to a Super Kmart location south of the mall on U.S. Route 9W, which later closed and was replaced by a Kohl's.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Pyramid Companies, the mall's owner, invested in a complete renovation of the mall's interior and attracted new tenants. The former Kmart space was divided into a Best Buy (opened 2000) and a Dick's Sporting Goods (opened 2001), with a new Target store opening adjacent to the space in 2001.

GameStop, formerly known as EB Games, has been a long-standing tenant in the mall. In 2005, GameStop acquired EB Games and began rebranding its US locations. By around 2008, the store in Hudson Valley Mall had fully transitioned to the GameStop name, becoming one of the mall's longest-standing stores.

In May 2006, Rita's Water Ice opened in the mall, and on September 9, 2006, Filene's became Macy's.

In 2007, the mall had an array of over 80 stores, including retailers like Sinclair, Verizon Wireless, clothing stores such as American Eagle and Gap, tech stores like Best Buy, jewelry stores including Kay Jewelers and Zales, eyeglass providers such as LensCrafters and Jules Vision, and food outlets including Taco Bell and Friendly's, which closed its mall location in November 2011. Although by May of 2007, McDonald's had closed its location in the food court.

Buffalo Wild Wings opened in 2008 but closed in 2012, leaving a gap in the mall's dining options. JCPenney announced it would close its location in 2015 due to decreasing sales. Macy's followed suit in 2016, as the company decided to focus on its highest-performing locations. CVS took over the Target pharmacy in the mall during 2016. By December of that year, Aeropostale also closed its doors.

In early 2017, the Hull Property Group purchased the Hudson Valley Mall for $8.1 million, about 12 percent of the property's most recent assessed value. Hull Property Group has since been working to revitalize the mall. One significant development was the transformation of the former Macy's space into a HealthQuest medical facility, a $20 million project approved in November 2018. This facility includes various medical services and aims to provide a significant presence in the Ulster County healthcare marketplace.

In January 2019, Old Navy moved out of the mall, relocating to Kings Mall in a space formerly occupied by Modell's Sporting Goods. By October 2019, Kingston Athletics moved into the mall. In August 2022, C&C Unisex Hair Design moved out of the mall, followed by LensCrafters in August 2023, leaving Jules Vision Center as the only glasses place in the mall and one of the longest-running stores, second to GameStop.

Sears closed in April 2018 as part of a broader strategy to eliminate brick-and-mortar stores. Regal Cinemas closed its 12-screen theater in August 2018, leaving the area without a first-run cinema for the first time in decades. However, NCG Cinema took over the space in early 2019, bringing movies back to the mall and remaining there since. Best Buy closed in October 2020, followed by The Shoe Department in 2021, and East Wok in 2022, marking the end of the food court in the mall with no food options available whatsoever.

As of 2024, Dick's Sporting Goods plans to move to the space formerly occupied by Gander Mountain near Lowe's and Sam's Club. Despite the numerous challenges, the Hudson Valley Mall still hosts several active stores, including Jimmy Jazz, Target, GameStop, NCG Cinema, HVM Dental, HealthQuest, Innate Movement Parkour, Jules Vision Center, Kingston Athletics, Mauceri Muay Thai, Unisex Hair Palace, Boy Scouts of America, and the United States Postal Service.

The Hudson Valley Mall continues to adapt to changing market conditions and consumer preferences, maintaining its role as a key retail and service hub in the Hudson Valley. Future updates will reflect any new developments or changes in the mall's tenant lineup.

2005 mall shooting
On February 13, 2005, Robert Bonelli, age 24, of Glasco, New York, entered the mall with a semi-automatic AK-47 Variant and began firing it in the mall's Best Buy shop. Panic ensued as employees and shoppers began to flee the mall. Bonelli moved into the mall's main corridor and continued firing his weapon until he ran out of ammunition. After emptying the assault rifle, he promptly dropped it. As Bonelli dropped the weapon, a mall employee grabbed his gun, and another tackled him. The mall was evacuated and Bonelli was taken into custody. No one was killed in the shooting, but two people, a 20-year-old National Guard recruiter and a 56-year-old male shopper, were wounded.

After the incident, Ulster County investigators searched Bonelli's room at the home he shared with his father, and found what Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams described as "Columbine memorabilia". Officials described the young man as being fascinated by the Columbine High School massacre. Additional searches were conducted by police after videos seized at Bonelli's residence showed him exploding homemade pipe bombs with a man named Kenneth Stine and another individual. Both individuals were later arrested and charged with violating federal explosives laws.

Bonelli was taken to the Ulster County jail; on March 15, 2006, Bonelli pleaded guilty and on May 20, 2006 was sentenced to 32 years in the state prison (the maximum allowed by the guilty plea). He will be eligible for parole after 26 years.

2006 murder of Sharon Inger
Some time between closing time of the Ground Round restaurant in the mall on June 3, 2006, and 9 a.m., the following morning, a suspect entered it and stabbed Sharon Inger, 42, approximately 33 times. Inger, who worked as a night manager of the restaurant, was found early Sunday morning when another employee arrived to open the restaurant. $4000 was missing, according to night receipts. On September 21, police named Paul David Despres as the killer of Sharon Inger. Despres had begun employment with the Ground Round just a couple of weeks earlier. Investigators believe he went to the restaurant to steal his personnel file after giving a false name to police during a traffic stop earlier on the night of the murder, at around 11 p.m. Police believe he had a confrontation with Inger, grabbed a knife in the kitchen, and killed her at about 12:45 a.m. Two weeks later, Despres died after jumping, while intoxicated, from a vehicle after leaving a party.