The Hudson Valley is home to more than a dozen indoor malls that were built in our suburban areas during the height of population growth in the late 1900s. These malls dominated the retail market and became part of American culture, offering warm environments for shopping and social gathering in towns throughout our region.

But over the past 20 years, many of our indoor shopping malls watched their stores and customers disappear. Online shopping took away a huge share of the market. Specialty stores for clothing, makeup, furniture, and other goods lured customers away from big department stores that anchored indoor malls. The modern shopper also changed. Recent studies found that middle-class Americans had less free time to stroll around their malls, and less disposable income to spend in their stores. Malls were also victims of their own success. Their popularity prompted the construction of more and more malls, until the market was supersaturated with more retail space than demand could support.

In the Hudson Valley, these trends caused several malls to empty out, close, or fall into disrepair. Other mall properties have been saved by adaptation and creative thinking. A few malls in the Hudson Valley have been razed to make way for vibrant mixed-use communities, while other mall owners plan to build housing in their vast parking lots to diversify the use of mall properties.

In 2024, civic leaders asked Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress to examine models of adaptive re-use that could bring new life to indoor mall properties across the region.

In Old Malls, New Uses, Pattern examined the state of indoor shopping malls throughout the region. The report includes examples of malls in the Hudson Valley that are struggling to stay afloat, and others that are being redeveloped as live-work-play communities. The report also includes a handful of anecdotes from other parts of New York and the United States, with a particular emphasis on projects that will raze malls and replace them with walkable, mixed-use, transit-connected communities.

Finally, this report offers some advice to mall owners, investors, and local governments. Collaboration among private and public leaders can yield revitalization plans for our faltering malls, turning them into new community centers that create wellness, connectivity, and new opportunities for our neighbors.