Dutchess Mall

Entrance to the mall in 2004
Location	Fishkill, New York, United States
Opening date	1974
Closing date	2001 (demolished 2006)
Management	Dagar Group
No. of stores and services	50+ (1974-2004)
No. of anchor tenants	2 (1974-1995)
No. of floors	1 (2 in J.W. Mays until Jamesway opened and sealed off 2nd floor.)

Dutchess Mall was an enclosed shopping mall in Fishkill, New York. In 2006, the main portion of the mall was demolished and replaced with a Home Depot except for the Jamesway and Service Merchandise anchor store buildings. In August 2021, a new site for Dutchess Community College moved into the Jamesway space.

History

The Dutchess Mall opened during 1974 as the first mall in Dutchess County. ^[1] The mall occupied a portion of a site used during the American Revolutionary War by the Fishkill Encampment and Supply Depot, which has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since the Dutchess Mall's opening. ^[2] The Fishkill Encampment was previously scheduled for conversion to a national park, but the plan was rejected. ^[3] Original anchors of the mall included Mays and Luckey Platt, two local department stores. ^[4] Other major tenants included Flah's, another local department store, ^[4] a pharmacy named Drug World, as well as Radio Shack and Waldenbooks.

Mays, which closed following their 1982 bankruptcy, was replaced with Gaynes. ^[5] Gaynes, in turn, was converted to a Jamesway discount shop during 1988, which closed following their liquidation in 1995. Luckey Platt closed in the 1980s and was replaced with Service Merchandise, which closed on December 24, 1996. ^[1] The former Service Merchandise was soon replaced with the Dutchess Flea Market. With both anchor stores gone, the other shops began ending operations as well, and by 2001 only the flea market remained.

Although the only enclosed shopping mall in Fishkill, the Dutchess Mall was often unable to attract many well-known tenants, due to persistent rumors of a larger mall being built nearby. The rumored mall, which would have been anchored by Macy's, was never built. ^[4] Because it could not attract stores easily, and because the anchor stores had changed, the Dutchess Mall was quick to lose tenants, eventually replacing a large portion of its retail space with a satellite campus of Marist College. Other problems of the mall included an outdated mall design, competition from the nearby Poughkeepsie Galleria and South Hills Mall, and the beginning of big box type retail. ^[1]

After the mall

In 1999, plans were announced to convert the mall into a business community named Hudson Valley Metro Centre. The project would have included office tenants, a recreational facility, child care, and restaurants. ^[6] Due to high startup costs, the plan was abandoned, ^[7] and by 2001, the mall was sealed off entirely except for the flea market, which remained open.

Two years later, a group of designers from New York devised a plan to convert Dutchess Mall into a women's prison. This plan was one of the finalists in "Dead Malls", a competition created by the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. ^[8] This plan, however, was not realized. In 2007, the Dutchess Mall was the subject of a documentary named Fish Kill Flea; the documentary's emphasis was the mall's flea market. ^[9]

Home Depot

After several years of vacancy, the main section of the mall was demolished and replaced with a Home Depot, which opened on July 5, 2006. ^[10] The former Jamesway and Service Merchandise buildings were left intact.

Jamesway Building

By 2014, the old Jamesway had become the new home of Dutchess Marketplace, a flea market with a variety of vendors. By the end of 2019, the Dutchess Marketplace closed. ^[11]

In August 2019, Dutchess Community College announced plans to open a campus in the former Jamesway building, ^[12] replacing he Hollowbrook campus in Wappinger. The campus was slated to open in fall 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the opening was pushed back. A ribbon cutting ceremony to mark the opening of the new campus was held on June 10, 2021. ^[13] On October 6, 2023, First Lady Jill Biden toured the facility, particularly the new Mechatronics lab. ^[14]

As of December 2023, the building that now houses DCC is still owned by J.W. May's, ^[15] who had a store there before Jamesway and is now a real estate company owning the real estate of their former stores. It is not connected to the May Company.

Other Tenants

As of 2024, besides the Home Depot, and the DCC campus, there is also a McDonald's and a Citizen's Bank branch occupying space toward the front of the property. There also used to be a branch of the Hudson Valley Credit Union and a Shop Rite. Both of these buildings are now abandoned, along with the former Service Merchandise Building. Behind the property is a nine hole golf course. ^[16]

References

41°31′09″N 73°53′33″W / 41.519152°N 73.892463°W / 41.519152; -73.892463