By Dustin Brown
It could be called “Nassau in Glendale” or “The Next Best Reason to Stay in Queens.”
But the swanky mecca of high-end retail shops slated to open three years from now in Glendale will boast a name that preserves the old while ushering in the new. Atlas Terminals, an 80-year-old industrial complex on Cooper Avenue, will be rechristened “The Shops at Atlas Park” when 10 of its 20 acres are transformed into a shopping center at a cost of $100 million.
“What we’ve found is that there is a huge untapped market of the literally millions of people in Queens,” said Damon Hemmerdinger, the development director for Atco Properties, which owns the site. “When a person wants to buy the kinds of merchandise that will be sold by the tenants of this project, there are basically three choices: go to an enclosed mall; go to Manhattan; or go to Nassau County.”
Atlas Park has been designed with the idea of curbing shoppers’ tendency to flee the county borders by removing the borough’s virtual vacuum of high-end and specialty retailers.
“We think it’s good to keep these jobs and taxes in the borough, in the city,” Hemmerdinger said.
The complex will consist of 75 small stores arrayed in a series of buildings around a 2.3-acre park in the heart of the property. Some of the existing Atlas buildings will remain standing with extensive renovation, while others will be demolished as some new structures go up. Parking will be divided between a few surface areas, a four-story garage and an extensive parking level running beneath most of the property, for a total of 1,200 spots.
The project is slated to break ground next summer and open early in 2005.
The concept is decidedly suburban.
“We think of it as an escape from New York as far as aesthetics,” Hemmerdinger said. “We view this as a relief from the density of Queens.”
The developer has already begun negotiating with national retail chains to occupy the storefronts. A day-care center will fill the upper floor of one building, while an area called the marketplace will feature a collection of six or seven local food merchants providing an almost European style of shopping.
“Most people would prefer to shop at a small independent store than a Pathmark, but they don’t because it’s a pain to park six separate times,” Hemmerdinger said.
The new vision for Atlas Terminals is only the latest and perhaps most radical revision in the long history of the industrial park, which was purchased by Hemmerdinger’s great grandfather in 1922 for his rag company.
As the complex expanded, the family eventually got out of the fabric business and turned into real estate developers, bringing blue-chip tenants like Kraft Foods and General Electric onto the site during the 1950s and ‘60s. While such companies have long since fled New York, the complex remained largely industrial, but the tenants have slowly been dropping off.
“We saw a couple of years ago that the future could not lie in manufacturing as a use for the property,” Hemmerdinger said.
The complex already has two office tenants, the Queens Symphony Orchestra and School District 24, neither of which will be forced out by the project. Half of the site will remain in its present form.
Zoning allows the project to proceed as-of-right, meaning it does not require any community approval. But the developer has met with the executive committee of Community Board 5, where the campus is located.
“There are certain concerns with regard to traffic routing in and out of there and the type of stores that would be in there,” said Gary Giordano, the district manager for CB 5. But on the whole he expressed optimism about the project. “I certainly think that it could be a favorable thing.”
City Councilman Dennis Gallagher (R-Middle Village) applauded the developer for planning a facility that caters to the community’s needs.
“We don’t want anymore 99-cent shops,” Gallagher said. “We could really use a place that has nice restaurants, that could be not only a mall area but a community place … The project is very well thought out.”
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
