South Hills Mall

infobox shopping mall
shopping_mall_name = South Hills Mall

---

caption = Main Hallway
location = Poughkeepsie, New York, United States
opening_date = 1974
closing_date = 31 December 2007
manager = Dagar Group
owner = Vornado Realty Trust
developer =
building_costs = $110 million
number_of_stores = 4
number_of_anchors = 4 open
floor_area = 675,000 square feet
floors = 1
parking = 2000 spaces
website =

South Hills Mall was an indoor shopping mall on US 9 in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, not far from Wappingers Falls. The 675,000-square foot (60,750 m²) plaza opened in 1974 and includes four stores, a small but empty food court, and an eight-screen second-run cinema. South Hills Mall is owned and operated by Vornado Realty Trust, which purchased the mall from the locally-based Dagar Group in October 2005 [http://www.dagargroup.com/story100905.html] .

The mall is adjacent to its rival, the Poughkeepsie Galleria, and the two are linked by interior roads. The Galleria's existence has led to the slow decline of South Hills and, for several years in the 1990s, there were rumors of the Galleria taking over South Hills and expanding into that space.

History

South Hills Mall was the first true indoor shopping mall in Poughkeepsie (though Poughkeepsie Plaza Mall, a strip mall which was later enclosed, predated it) and the second in Dutchess County after Dutchess Mall in Fishkill. At the outset, anchors were Sears and KMart and an assortment of smaller stores common for the era. South Hills quickly became the dominant retail center in the Poughkeepsie area, leading to a realignment at Poughkeepsie Plaza and the closing of venerable downtown retailer Luckey Platt & Co. in 1981. A later expansion added Hess's and a food court. Service Merchandise relocated to this mall in 1995 after closing the location at the Dutchess Mall.

In the early 1980s, an initial proposal for a two-story mall adjacent to South Hills was submitted; after several years of protests, this proposal became Poughkeepsie Galleria and opened in 1987. Though the malls co-existed successfully for the first several years of the Galleria's existence, as the 1990s began South Hills began to suffer. The decline largely began in 1991 when Hess's closed their location and Sears moved to the Galleria; the Hess's space was replaced by Burlington Coat Factory while the Sears space was divided between Pharmhouse and a (freestanding) Price Chopper supermarket.

Around this time, South Hills was sold to Sarakreek, a Dutch property holding firm which reimaged the mall into a "power center" in which "big-box" retailers would open locations inside the mall. Smaller stores were replaced by such stores as Media Play, Old Navy, Office Max, Discovery Zone, and Bob's Stores. This strategy lessened the decline for a short period, however in the long run the alienation of smaller stores only led to a further, greater decline to the point that all of the aforementioned stores either have all since closed their locations at the mall.

Present

By the late 1990s, Sarakreek sold South Hills to the Dagar Group, a locally based retail ownership group that mostly owns strip malls. The decline of South Hills hastened after this change as many established smaller tenants left the mall. Filling those holes have been smaller, independent shops ranging from a pottery and craft store to a small lunch counter to an asian interest shop as well as some tenants more suited to strip malls (such as GameStop and Weight Watchers). The Service Merchandise location has been largely vacant, minus several months as an overstock book store, and now serves merely as a corridor from the mall to a parking lot. After Phar-Mor, parent of Pharmhouse, folded, the space has played host to two different furniture stores. The closings of both Media Play and OfficeMax in 2006 also have not been good news for the mall. One of the few remaining source of incomes for the mall is the Silver Cinemas, which shows second-run movies for $1-2 a ticket.

As of late May 2008, the mall was almost fully empty, with the exception of Silver Cinemas, K-Mart, Burlington Coat Factory and ShopRite. The center of the mall was open for indoor access to the anchor stores, even though all other stores were closed on December 31, 2007.

As of July 2008, construction crews had begun demolition of the site, while the four major tenants remain open [http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008807180330] .

Future

Rumors and ideas to save the mall continue to circulate. One proposal has most of the space being bulldozed for a WalMart Supercenter while another has a realignment in which half of the mall is replaced with a Costco while the more successful stores are relocated into the other half. In May 2006, initial plans were submitted to demolish much of the mall and rebuild it as a big-box center with a few successful stores surviving.

Price Chopper announced on June 29, 2006 that the South Hills Mall location would close July 15. [http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060630/BUSINESS/606300311/1003] On July 6, 2006, ShopRite announced that they would open a store in what had been the Price Chopper location. The store opened in the Fall of 2006. [http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060707/BUSINESS/607070336/1003]

Vornado Realty Trust lists the property as a strip shopping center and excludes it from lists of shopping malls. The property profile begins with "Formerly the South Hills Mall..." [http://retail.vno.com/property_home.aspx?id=Poughkeepsie] , which suggests that the company plans to go through with the proposal to demolish the enclosed mall.

However, recent news articles in the Poughkeepsie Journal report that the South Hills Mall has made a deal to open up Christmas Tree Shops store.

With the exception of the anchor stores, the mall is slated to be demolished to build an outdoor shopping center named The Shoppes at South Hills [Cite web | url=http://retail.vno.com/siteplan.aspx?id=Poughkeepsie | title=Vornado Realty Trust|accessdate=2008-06-25] . Demolition started in July of 2008.

References

External links

* [http://www.southhillsmall.com/ SouthHillsMall.com - Features a forum dedicated to the mall, online shopping, and more.]
* [http://www.myspace.com/southhillsmall Myspace Profile]
* [http://www.deadmalls.com/malls/south_hills_mall.html DeadMalls.com Profile]
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/dahveed76/sets/72157594223356771/ Photos of South Hills Mall]
* [http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061021/BUSINESS/610210314/1003 KMart & Burlington Coat Factory To Stay - Poughkeepsie Journal]
* [http://myspace.com/cockwranglerband South Hills Mall Song]
* [http://retail.vno.com/property_home.aspx?id=Poughkeepsie The Shoppes at South Hills (Site Plan)]