Hampshire Mall - Raw & Real Retail
This is our walkthrough of the Hampshire Mall from January 23, 2019. This is a bittersweet tragic story where by The Pyramid Company finds itself with a dead mall on their hands, so they do what they think they need to do to stay current, they rip out any interesting architectural features and put in a lot of entertainment venues like bowling alleys, laser tag, go carts, etc. The food court was transformed into a sort of New Orleans type town center motif and while some might find this charming, I personally think it looked way better before.
Check out our ongoing series of dead and dying shopping malls!
Songs used in this video (in order):
Syd Dale - Won't You Join The Dance
Syd Dale - Doodle
John A. Coleman - Endeavour Suite
Steve Gray - Wonder Groove
Please do check out this excellent writeup from the Caldor Rainbor blog, it was done pre-renovations and has some excellent pictures of what the mall used to look like:
For brevity, here is the wikipedia article:
Hampshire Mall is a primarily one-story shopping mall with a small second floor in Hadley, Massachusetts, United States, with approximately 55 stores owned by The Pyramid Companies. Current anchor stores include Dick's Sporting Goods, JCPenney, PetSmart and Target. The mall is home to Interskate 91 North, a roller skating rink on the second floor. Attached to the skating rink is LaserBlast: Ancient Adventure (a Lasertag facility that was formerly home to LaserStorm).
When the mall opened in 1978 it was anchored by JCPenney, Steiger's and Kmart.
The Steiger's store was demolished in 1994 for Media Play. The Media Play store opened August 10, 1995. Kmart closed in 2002 because of the chain's bankruptcy. In 2003 the former Kmart space was rebuilt and extended to house a Target store. Originally the mall contained a six screen movie theater that existed from 1978 to 1999. This was then expanded to a 12-screen Cinemark movie theater in 2000.
A 45,000 sq ft Dick's Sporting Goods store opened in early 2005, replacing a former Eastern Mountain Sports. Best Buy and Steve & Barry's replaced Media Play in early 2005. Steve & Barry's filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008 and subsequently closed their Hampshire Mall store in August 2008 and it replaced by the racetrack.
Walmart developers beginning in 2005 wished to build a new 212,000-square-foot Supercenter southeast of Hampshire Mall. However, there have been various hindrances as a consequence of a bylaw designed to keep out large stores by restricting new stores to 75,000 square feet. After two years of negotiations, on November 20, 2007, a subdivision plan that exempted the planned Walmart Supercenter from the current bylaw restrictions was approved. Developers have eight years to get a site plan approved before the exemption expires. This would almost certainly mean the current store, attached to the east end of Mountain Farms Mall, would close.
In February 2009 Buffalo Wild Wings opened a store between Target and Best Buy. The restaurant got into a dispute with the mall because of an alleged faulty roof that led to a buildup of condensation on the premises. The Pyramid Corporation did not agree to carry out repairs and as a consequence some amount of the rent was withheld. Whether the restaurant never paid any rent or did pay some rent is disputed. The case is currently in litigation. On July 29, 2010 they announced that they lost their lease as of August 1, 2010. The space is now closed. Platterpus Records closed down its store in March 2010. In June 2010 the store reopened in Easthampton, Massachusetts. In August 2015, it was announced that Best Buy would close their doors on October 31 and in 2016, Spirit Halloween opened in the former Best Buy space for 2 months.PetSmart opened in the former Best Buy space in April 2017.