Mountain Farms Mall has enjoyed a revival over the past two years, and is eating Hampshire Mall's lunch.
When Hampshire opened in 1978, the buzz was that it was doubtful that this community of mostly transient students could support two shopping centers...but Pyramid Corporation was a powerful enough force to get the project built. Mountain Farms lost tenant after tenant over the years and was nearly empty when the big box trend began to heat up.
Now, Mountain Farms has been reborn as a strip mall with renovated theatres, a Wal Mart, Barnes & Noble, Old Navy, and Linens & Things. The natural food store at the end of the property has held its own over the years, given the local earthy-crunchy demographic.
The plaza doesn't feel large and impersonal, perhaps due to the leisurely browsable B & N with its stylish cafe. The plaza has a semi rural location, with farms behind it.
Hampshire Mall, on the other hand, is struggling. The mix of tenants appears to be out of whack, but I believe that Target is slated to replace the departed KMart, which will challenge JCPenney. The theatre complex was rebuilt from the ground up within the past two years.
This is my first out of state dead mall that I've written up, and
unfortunately I don't know much about it. I was lucky enough to be able
to get inside to get some images for the site though. I know what killed
this mall in, which lives in a rather rural setting, is it's next store
neighbor, the Hampshire Mall.
When I find out more about MFM, I'll let ya know, until then enjoy the
deadmalls.com exclusive post-living inside pictures of this really
seedy concrete floored mall. Too bad it's been hacked up to build a
Wal-Mart and Old Navy. People of Hadley, MA, let me know what is up
with this place.
(pictures taken March 24, 2001)
Monday, April 23, 2001 -- (HADLEY) - The AMC Mountain Farms 4 Theaters, which occupied its location in the Mountain Farms Mall on Route 9 for nearly three decades, has closed its doors, saying it can't compete with the new Cinemark theaters that opened last year.
Mall owner W.S. Development is interested in leasing the theater again, said Robert Frazier, the company's vice president of development. He said, however, there are no plans for renovations in the immediate future.
AMC corporate spokesman Rick King of Kansas City, Mo., said after the Cinemark Theater, with stadium seating and 12 wall-to-wall screens, opened across the street in the Hampshire Mall last year, the 1973 AMC theater became obsolete.
The replacement of small, older style theaters with stadium style mega-complexes is a national trend of recent years.
Much of the rear structure/loading docks and some foundation are left over from the old mall. The water feature was still there til the end, after the little mill was removed, becuase Mass DEQ declared the koi pond an isolated wetland habitat. There was a service corridor behind Panera/EMS with a hatch that opened so govenrment employees could monitor the fish, n idea if its still there.
James Kozlowski’s Commentary:
User submitted in 2022
This was a great mall. For years before the end of it, they had a great flea maket there. I live in the valley and my dad set up there when I was a kid. I used to go there and it seemed all the malls had a flea market going at one time or another.
Leon Cranson’s Commentary:
User submitted in 2019
The Theaters in the old mountain farms mall is long dead. The entire structure is unrecegnizable from when I was a kid. It's all Box retail stores with no interior.
Other Email Contributions:
David A. Litterer’s Commentary:
User submitted Nov 2008
Hampshire Mall began to struggle once the Mountain Farms Mall across the street began converting to a big-box strip mall. K-mart closed down (only a 4-5 years after undergoing a major expansion/renovation, as did Media Play, and a number of the smaller stores, leaving only J. C. Penney as an anchor.
They fought back by partially adopting the big-box strip-mall concept, and the mall evolved into sort of a strip mall/enclosed mall hybrid. The eastern third of the mall was demolished (K-Mart and the adjacent concourse area), and a new Target was put in its place. The north side of the mall was redesigned to accommodate big box shops - Best Buy, Dick's Sporting Goods, University Sportswear, and a Trader Joe's was built as a standalone bldg in the parking lot. Cinemark theatres (12 screens) opened in 2000 before this evolution, and they're the only mainstream 1st run cinrmas in town. The rest of the mall, the enclosed section almost feels like an afterthought now, with entrances snaking around the big box places. Some stores are vacant or seasonal, a fair number of discount shops - I don't think they've quite figured out how to revive this area. Currently the central decorative seating areas in Cafe Square are boarded off for remodeling - I don't
know what will replace the statues and fountains. Interskate 91 and Laterstorm still provide recreational entertainment.
They have been reasonably competitive, with the new big box stores, although Mountain Farms is the dominant mall these days. They do seem to be making somewhat of a comeback in the last year. Info as of November 2008.
Alexander Wise’s Commentary:
User submitted May 2007
Some odds and ends about MFM... The original anchor tenants were a Woolco on the western end, and an Almay's on the east. The papered over windows in the 5th from last picture (next to the "FOUR THEATRES" sign picture) was a Papa Gino's, and the central water feature (with the wooden bridges) featured a waterwheel.
Brie Burdon’s Commentary:
User submitted Apr 2007
I lived in the Hadley area in 1999, and although Mountain Farms was technically still open, it looked very much like the 2001 pictures on this site.
As I remember, the only businesses still open inside the mall at that time were a sketchy-looking Chinese restaurant, the arcade, and the movie theater.
I never set foot inside the restaurant; in fact, it was so dark and scary looking that I'm not even sure it was actually open.
The theater was definitely from a bygone era; the screens were small and they didn't sell much other than popcorn and soda at the concession stand. And yes, they did actually use the felt board in the picture to list admission prices. I think we paid even less than the amounts shown in the picture, but I could be wrong.
Most of the games in the arcade didn't work, and they were all very, very old and shabby. I remember there being Ms. Pac Man, Nintendo Bowling, and some kind of driving game that was actually outside of the arcade itself in the hallway. All of the games looked like the money compartments had been pried open many times.
The creepiest thing about Mountain Farms, though, was that they didn't bother to rope off the abandoned part of the mall, even though all of the stores were empty and the lights were turned off. One night while waiting to go in to a movie, my then-boyfriend and I wandered into the abandoned section out of curiosity. We came across what I assume used to be a fountain or a wishing pond, still full of water. When we peered in we saw that not only had they failed to drain the pond and remove the change, the mall's management had left the fish in there as well. They were huge and orange, and were swimming fairly quickly around the smelly, algae-filled little pond. It was beyond weird. Then my boyfriend speculated out loud that the fish could have survived by eating one another, and once he said that I got so creeped out that I went running out of the mall and never went back.
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Richard Robbins’ Commentary:
User submitted in 2023Much of the rear structure/loading docks and some foundation are left over from the old mall. The water feature was still there til the end, after the little mill was removed, becuase Mass DEQ declared the koi pond an isolated wetland habitat. There was a service corridor behind Panera/EMS with a hatch that opened so govenrment employees could monitor the fish, n idea if its still there.
James Kozlowski’s Commentary:
User submitted in 2022This was a great mall. For years before the end of it, they had a great flea maket there. I live in the valley and my dad set up there when I was a kid. I used to go there and it seemed all the malls had a flea market going at one time or another.
Leon Cranson’s Commentary:
User submitted in 2019The Theaters in the old mountain farms mall is long dead. The entire structure is unrecegnizable from when I was a kid. It's all Box retail stores with no interior.