# 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 765,704 square feet (71,136 m$^2$) 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 Raymour & Flanigan Outlet. Across from the mall on 9W is Ulster Crossings. That shopping center has a Michaels, LL Bean, Five Below and a few other stores.

## 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.
Between 2015 and 2018, JCPenney closed probably due to early bankruptcy problems.
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, the only NCG location in New York, took over the space in early 2019, bringing movies back to the mall and remaining there since.
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.
Best Buy closed in October 2020. In 2021, the former Best Buy location was repurposed as Ulster County's primary COVID-19 vaccination site. The site, opened in March 2021, allowed for up to 2,500 vaccine doses to be administered daily with parking for up to 300 vehicles. It operated until February 2023 when the county relocated the vaccination services.
As of September 2024, the Hudson Valley Mall continues to host a variety of stores and services, including Jimmy Jazz, Target, GameStop, NCG Cinema, HVML Dental, Quest Medical Practice, Innate Movement Parkour, Kingston Athletics, Mauceri Muay Thai, a Boy Scouts office, and the United States Postal Service. Dick's Sporting Goods is still located in the mall, though there are plans for the store to relocate in the future. Spirit Halloween has taken over the space formerly occupied by Best Buy, which was repurposed as a vaccination center from 2021 to 2023.
Spirit Halloween had previously been using the former Gander Mountain/Gander Outdoors location from 2020 to 2023. Now occupying the former Best buy spot in the mall. Gander Mountain, a sporting goods store, originally closed in 2017, reopened briefly as Gander Outdoors, and then closed again. Dick's Sporting Goods has received approval from the town of Kingston to relocate to the former Gander Mountain/Gander Outdoors space. However, as of September 2024, the move has not yet taken place.
On December 26th 2024 Jimmy Jazz has closed their retail location at the Hudson Valley mall followed by one of the malls longest lasting renters, GameStop. GameStop decided to close its doors on January 5th, 2025 with no notice to customers and limited notice to staff. By January 10th the store was completely vacant.

## Incidents
### 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. He had two 30 round magazines, and fired a total of 60 shots. 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.