The Shops at Atlas Park was opened in April 2006 by ATCO Properties, encompassing the site of the former 25-acre (100,000 m2) Atlas Terminals industrial park, both of which were named after bodybuilder Charles Atlas who resided in nearby Middle Village.[1][2]
History
What is now Atlas Park began as 19 acres (7.7 ha) of farmland between Cooper Avenue and Dry Harbor Road (present-day 80th Street[a]). In June 1902, the American Grass Products Company purchased the land and constructed a 40,000-square-foot (3,700 m2) brick factory, and in 1903 a power plant was constructed.[3] In 1922, Henry Hemmerdinger (whose family operates ATCO Properties) purchased a warehouse in the area, which would evolve Atlas Terminals.[4] In its heyday in the 1950s, the industrial park housed companies such as General Electric, Kraft, Westinghouse, and New York Telephone. Freight operations to and from the terminal were facilitated by the Long Island Rail Road's Montauk Branch at the park's south end.[3][4][5] It was redeveloped in the 2000s after years of struggling to find tenants.[5] Four of the buildings ranging in size from 13,000 to 93,000 square feet[5] were renovated as part of the center, and sixteen buildings in the vicinity of Cooper Avenue and 80th Street were demolished and replaced by a 2.3-acre (9,300 m2) landscaped park.
The mall is served by the Q29, Q47 and Q54 bus routes.[9][10] The reroutings of the Q54 and what was then the Q45 (now the southern half of the Q47) to serve the mall in 2007 and 2008, respectively, were controversial because MTA Chairman H. Dale Hemmerdinger was also the president of ATCO Properties.[11][12][13]
