(post by BT) In these economic times, one missed payment could mean that you lose a mall. Especially if your mortgage is held by French banks Societe Generale and Calyon. The Shops at Atlas Park mall is changing hands effective today after its developer Atco Properties & Management, defaulted on a loan payment. What went wrong at 8000 Cooper Avenue? Well, for starters, the retail stores at this mall were all rather weird choices for the area – a middle-class old-Queens Glendale / Middle Village border – Bombay Company furniture (bankrupt), Blue Tulip card store (bankrupt), Art World (huh?!), Jos. A. Bank, Stella Gialla (huh!?), and a whole other slew of either oddly-fitting or broken brands. There was also some bad luck… Borders and Starbucks, two seemingly safe choices, both ran into problems in 2008. Starbucks announced it will close its Atlas Park location back in July ’08 and Borders has been fighting bankruptcy rumors for some time now. I guess an incredibly packed Chilli, California Pizza Kitchen or a movie theater weren’t enough to save it. We don’t know if the New York Sports Club did well there, but we’ve heard from the employees at the Food Cellar in LIC that the Atlas Park Amish Market is doing badly. 50% vacancy rate after a couple of years in operation! Was it ‘for rent by owner’? And why did they charge for parking? Driving in was the only viable option and with limited parking outside, the paid garage surely kept a few folks away.

What else does LIC and Atlas Park have in common besides upscale supermarkets (Food Cellar and Amish Market) owned by the same people? Spokesman Cycles! Yes, you will find the bicycle store of the same name at 49-04 Vernon Blvd.

Atlas Park will stay for now, but Atco will no longer own or manage it.The sad part of the story is that the Hemmerdinger family owned this lot (previously an industrial park) since the 1920s. Their large The current boss, Damon Hemmerdinger, is a son of Dale Hemmerdinger, chairman of the MTA. It is during his reign that this $200-million project went bust. He tried all sorts of things. They got the Q54 bus rerouted. IN early 2008 Hemmerdinger even gave away money to people on the street, from $1 to $50 along with the “I support the economy” stickers, aimed to generate more traffic at the Atlas mall.