The Shops At Atlas Park Prepares To Open
Highly anticipated Queens lifestyle center holds summer programs to promote its unique project.

The Shops at Atlas Park is a 400,000-square-foot lifestyle center that is scheduled to open in late April 2006. Like many other lifestyle centers, the tenant mix is comprised of specialty retailers, in this case better women's apparel, and there is a large component of entertainment and dining tenants that occupy the center as well.

However, The Shops at Atlas Park is not an ordinary lifestyle center; in fact, it is the very first shopping center of its kind in New York City. More specifically, the project is located in the Glendale section of Queens, one of the most densely-populated and under-retailed areas of the country. Queens shoppers have no choice but to travel to Long Island, New Jersey and Manhattan for their retail needs, so The Shops at Atlas Park is satisfying a much-needed demand. Tenants that are leased to The Shops at Atlas Park include Coldwater Creek, Bombay Company, Aerosoles, California Pizza Kitchen, Jos. A. Bank, Claire's, Johnny Rockets, Coldstone Creamery, Pasticchio, Stella Gialla and others.

The newest tenants within the center include Chico's, which has leased 3,919 square feet; White House Black Market has signed on for 2,375 square feet; Gymboree is leasing 2,284 square feet; and Shiro's of Japan recently signed on for 8,400 square feet of space. However, despite the underserved market and the pent-up demand, leasing has not been an easy task.

“The most interesting challenge in leasing this project has been introducing a complex and new market to our tenants' leasing representatives,” explains Damon Hemmerdinger, development director for The Shops at Atlas Park. “Simply put, this location in Queens is a different market than almost anywhere these tenants are used to occupying space; however, we're making available to our tenants the opportunity to sell their merchandise in they way they like to sell it and in a market where normally they would have to compromise.”

To promote its spring opening, The Shops at Atlas Park held several programs and events this summer not only to show off the center to local residents, but also to give tenants an idea of the customer base and how the center itself will look. Beginning the weekend after July 4, every Saturday from 10 A.M. to 4 P.M., the 2.5-acre park in the middle of the project was opened to the public for an event called “The Park Meets the Arts.” Included in this summer program was a Greenmarket, which featured two to four large farmer's trucks filled with goods just picked off the farm; a local craft fair, organized through the New York Council of the Arts, that displayed work from local Queens and other New York City crafters; and the third component of the program involved some sort of entertainment, featuring a different event every week.

“A lot of people had concerns about this project, as they wanted to see what was going on in their neighborhood, but the summer events really helped tenants gauge who the Atlas Park shopper will be,” says Rebecca Maccardini, principal at RMResources LLC. “In addition, the local residents had a preview of the park that's right in their backyard, a rare thing in such a densely populated area. They were able to see that the project is not just another big box development, but an endeavor that's really centered upon the redevelopment of an old site into a new destination.”

— Dan Marcec