Susquehanna Valley Mall opens around the pre-existing Boscov's
Boscov's opened first in 1977 as a standalone department store on its own parcel. Susquehanna Valley Mall opened a year later on September 26, 1978, at One Susquehanna Valley Mall Drive near Selinsgrove, PA.
Kravitz Properties developed the mall. It opened as a one-level enclosed regional shopping center, built around the existing Boscov's, with about 400,000 square feet and a central interior corridor.
Bon-Ton opened as the other anchor beside Boscov's, giving the mall two department-store anchors from the start.
The mall sat on a large site and served the central Susquehanna Valley as a single stop for errands, browsing, and time spent walking inside.
The layout was simple: entrances led straight to parking lots, stores faced the inside, and there was a hallway that made it easy for people to walk from one end to the other.
Early years: JCPenney arrives and Boscov's standout features
J.C. Penney joined the lineup in 1979, about ten months after the mall opened. Susquehanna Valley Mall soon had three main stores, with one long hallway where people walked back and forth on weekends.
Boscov's offered more than a standard department-store floor plan.
The store included upstairs areas reached by a main staircase, with bathrooms upstairs and spaces set aside beyond the sales floor, including a community room, storage areas, and back corridors.
The toy department was built around a train theme. A suspended train ran on a track overhead, and for a time, a train sat at child height that kids could crawl into, with a TV and toys inside.
The store also included an automotive section and, at one point, a garden center. Crystal chandeliers hung inside the store and gave the space a more formal look than typical department-store lighting.
Parking lot crimes and hard public dates
The Susquehanna Valley Mall parking lot sits at the edge of the building and is where most visits begin and end. It is also the starting point for some of the mall's most painful dates.
On May 24, 1989, a 19-year-old woman was abducted from the mall parking lot while on her way to work at the mall pet store.
She was later murdered, and the case ended with a conviction in 1992.
On November 11, 2013, a man was murdered after being lured through Craigslist, in a case that also began at the mall and ended with life sentences.
The crimes became part of the mall's local history and came up in everyday conversations, especially when people tried to match their own memories of the mall to certain years.
1998 expansion: Sears wing and new tenants
The mall's biggest physical change came in 1998. A major expansion added Sears as a fourth anchor and extended the building with a new wing of inline stores, leading to that end.
The expansion made the mall about 744,900 square feet in size, turning a big shopping center into an even bigger one with four main stores.
The fourth big store gave shoppers another reason to visit and another place to go inside the building.
It also gave smaller stores more chances to get noticed by people walking between shops. The interior walk became longer, but the point was still the same: cover the distance inside.
By the end of the 1990s, Susquehanna Valley Mall looked set up for the long term.
Boscov's, Bon-Ton, J.C. Penney, and Sears formed the spine, and the added corridor filled in the middle with the usual mix of chains, snack stops, and service storefronts.
For roughly 30 years after its opening, it held the status of the region's biggest retail project, the default enclosed option in a part of Pennsylvania where driving was part of the shopping plan.
2008-2014: tenants, theater, radio years
In 2008, Monroe Marketplace opened, and the region gained a newer competitor, ending Susquehanna Valley Mall's run as the only large destination of its kind.
Leasing continued inside the mall. Hollister opened in December 2008. Around the same time, BMoss announced it would close. KB Toys closed in early 2009.
The mall remained a community event site.
The 94KX Cares for Kids Radiothon raised money for Janet Weis Children's Hospital, including $45,000 in 2012, $40,700 in 2013, and $41,680 in 2014, and used the mall as an indoor gathering space beyond shopping.
The period also brought incidents and paperwork that sat alongside the retail churn.
In May 2009, two women were carjacked in the parking lot, and the perpetrator later turned himself in. In October 2009, an Arby's had a grease fire, and no one was injured.
In 2009, the mall and many tenants filed county tax appeals.
Storefront turnover continued into the next decade. Waldenbooks closed in 2011, and Books-A-Million replaced it in October.
Max Media opened a radio studio in 2011, adding a broadcast presence inside the mall. In 2013, the Courtyard Theater opened for live theater.
In June 2014, a fatal car accident occurred in the parking lot.
2015-2018: closures tear out anchors
The decline became clear in 2015. Gap closed in January. JCPenney, added as an anchor in 1979, closed in November 2015 and left a large vacant anchor space behind.
RadioShack and Deb Shops also closed in 2015, and the corridor began losing stores faster than it gained replacements.
More tenants began winding down in 2016. Hallmark started closing sales in late June. Aeropostale began closing in September.
In December 2016, several closures landed close together: Courtyard Theatre closed, along with Limitless Mobile, Sprint, and Things Remembered.
Vacancies started to change the feel of the interior, with longer quiet stretches between open storefronts.
In 2017, Susquehanna Valley Mall mixed new uses with more departures. Boscov's Furniture Outlet opened in March 2017 in the former Gap space.
Sears closed in March 2017, removing the fourth anchor added in the 1998 expansion.
Justice closed in April 2017, while Cricket Wireless opened in June 2017. All In Adventures and Stadium Studio opened in 2017, while Crazy 8, Subway, and TCBY closed.
In late April 2018, Bon-Ton closed, leaving Boscov's as the only traditional department-store anchor.
Clinics, churches, and new daily traffic
After the anchor exit, Susquehanna Valley Mall began leasing space to tenants that needed square footage more than walk-in shopping traffic.
The former JCPenney space became a meeting location for Higher Hope Church. Redeemer Fellowship Church also joined the interior mix, and more of the building shifted toward community use.
The former Sears became the largest change. In 2018, the Sears building was sold to D&C Realty for $1.5 million, while the mall retained the land under a 50-year ground lease.
Work to change the building started in the fall of 2018, but the outside stayed the same while the inside was rebuilt for a new purpose.
Family Practice Center moved in and opened a clinic, planning to stay for a long time. This brought more weekday visitors instead of the old pattern of mostly weekend crowds.
Parts of the Family Practice Center opened in February 2020. In May 2020, Geisinger subleased space for urgent care. The Geisinger Convenient Care Plus clinic opened in March 2021.
Evangelical Community Hospital opened an imaging and orthopaedics center in August 2023. That same year, Flea Flickers rented the old Bon-Ton space for storage, with the option to add retail in the future.
By then, the property still operated as an enclosed mall, but it functioned as mixed-use.
Kohan purchase, 2026 closures, events
Financial trouble followed the retail trouble. On August 9, 2019, Susquehanna Valley Mall went to sheriff's sale after a default tied to a $33.4 million mortgage. U.S. Bank acquired the property for $5.25 million.
In October 2025, the mall sold for $9,175,000. Ownership transferred to Susquehanna Mall Realty Holdings, part of the Kohan Retail Investment Group.
The buyer focuses on distressed mall properties and has a record of bill disputes at other sites.
In early 2026, Boscov's remains the primary retail anchor, and AMC CLASSIC Selinsgrove 12 remains a major draw, alongside more than 50 smaller stores.
Medical tenants continue operating in the former Sears space.
Retail keeps thinning at the edges. FYE closed in January 2025. American Eagle is set to close later in January 2026. Imagination Toys and Sylvia's Sweet Cakes left the mall at the end of 2025.
Hobby Lobby operates as an outparcel next to Susquehanna Valley Mall and draws its own destination traffic without relying on the interior corridor.
The store occupies the former Weis Markets building, which Weis used from 1998 until it closed in October 2018.
The conversion kept the big-box footprint in place and resulted in a roughly 53,000-square-foot Hobby Lobby that opened on December 24, 2021, at North Susquehanna Trail and Roosevelt Avenue.
Susquehanna Valley Mall still has reasons for people to visit.
Early 2026 includes sports card shows and the Children's Fair on January 31, a Valentine craft festival on February 6-8, and a tattoo expo on February 21-22.
The hallway is quieter than before, but it is not closed.
