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Located in a hidden corner of Queens, far from a major highway, the Shops At Atlas Park is undergoing a transformation, trying to shed its previous town center image and re-emerge from the shadows as a mall.

Opened in late 2005, Atlas Park was conceived as a community destination – a town square with shopping, a play area for children, high-end boutiques and restaurants targeting a clientele with deep pockets from the other side of Woodhaven Boulevard in Forest Hills.

But what has evolved in the three-plus years since its doors opened is a series of opened and closed stores, a frustration on the part of the retailers over the park setting and paid parking and a clientele looking more for savings than sophistication.

Just as Atlas Park got off the ground, the economy began to stagnate and later spiral downward. This past winter, Atco Management, the company formed by the owning Hemmerdinger family to run the site, was removed by the mall’s financial backers when they called the note on the $220 million site; a Receiver was appointed and the Mattone Group was brought in to handle the day-to-day management.

Today, the philosophy of the site is changing. The central fountain, once the bane of retailers, has been fenced off, barring access to children’s play. The Receiver is trying to evict the high-end Amish Market from its site. The site currently occupied by Stein Mart, once-touted as the anchor for the mall, is now available for immediate lease – as a supermarket.

Stein Mart spokeswoman Susan Edelman maintains that Stein Mart is under contract. “We have a multi-year lease that began in April 2006 and goes for quite some time,” she said Tuesday.

On Wednesday, however, at a breakfast for brokers, commercial broker Capstone Realty distributed packages showing the sites at Atlas currently available. One page in the packet pitches the 32,534-square-foot Stein Mart site as “available immediately.”

“The community of Glendale is crying out for a supermarket to move into their neighborhood, and we have just the location for you,” the prepared materials read.

One prospective tenant, Western Beef, has already turned down Atlas Park over parking access.

“They offered us a location there,” said Santino Montalbano, real estate director for Western Beef. “It does not really lay out as the prototype store. We are definitely looking to expand in that area. We were offered a location, but we are going to pass on it. We need 30,000 square feet and a parking lot.”

Other sites currently listed for lease include the former Aerosoles and Marmi locations, a multitude of vacant spots throughout the mall as well as sites currently listed for the UPS Store, Deseo and Regus Executive Suites. All totaled, 101,798 square feet of the 400,000 on site are listed as vacant.

“At the end of the day it’s all about giving people a place to shop for the things they need,” said Paul Millus, the court-appointed Receiver and spokesman for Atlas Park. “We want to give people value, and good quality items – and that is what we are working diligently on.”

Millus explained the closing of the fountain as a business decision, even though the sign shown at the mall states that the fountain has been closed because of a change in state health regulations.

He said a meeting with the Glendale Civic Association showed people in the area were strongly against the concept of using the fountain as a play area.

“The bottom line was that from a tenant’s perspective Atlas Park is a shopping area, not a playground,” Millus said. “It is not conducive to doing business.” Operating costs and liability were also an issue, he said.

Admitting that Atlas Park suffers from an identity crisis, Millus said the mall needs to have the right mix to attract customers.

“You have to find the right mix,” he said. “We are touching base with electronics stores, restaurants, and other stores that would bring to the community a place where they could go and fill all their shopping needs.”

And for the foreseeable future, though the fountain remains closed to the children who used to play in it, Atlas Park will continue to try to re-establish itself as a unique shopping destination.

“People come for a period of time and we offer a multitude of shopping needs in a setting that is idyllic,” Millus said. “It is a beautiful place, a magnificent place. It may have done gangbusters in Florida or Phoenix, Arizona, but we can make it work here.”