Mall eyes expansion
The Palisades Center mall in Clarkstown, which marked its 10th anniversary last week, hopes to continue to grow not only as a retail center, but a business meeting and conference destination.
“Our goal, in cooperation with the local government, is to develop some of our out-parcels and expand the purpose of the mall to include a conference center, a hotel and possibly a residential component,” said Peter Janoff, general manager of the mall.
“We are very pleased with the growth of the mall and its contribution to the shopping community and local community in general,” he said. “It”™s been a terrific economic force, created many, many jobs, infused an enormous amount of money into local (government) coffers, and become a world-class destination for shoppers and people seeking entertainment throughout the region. It”™s been a terrific 10 years.”
Janoff said the mall hopes, with the consent of the town of Clarkstown, to position the mall as a top destination for business meetings as well as shoppers.
The current mall is about 2.2 million square feet. The property includes 175 acres, some undeveloped parts of which would be the potential site of a hotel and conference center.
Janoff said the reason for the mall”™s success is largely due to the divergent nature of its anchor stores and smaller stores.
“We have a Home Depot and a Lord & Taylor in the same mall,” he said. “The reach is very, very broad. It broke the conventional wisdom of what enclosed shopping facilities should be.”
Janoff said the mall, which attracts about 24 million visitors annually, has become a “case study” for developers of other malls throughout the world. Janoff said he has given tours of the mall to developers who wanted to incorporate aspects of the Palisades Center”™s design into their own.
Janoff said in addition to local economic benefits, the mall benefits the county by acting as a tourist destination.
The Best Western Nyack on Hudson is one of the establishments that benefits from that tourism, said Greg Parseghian, the hotel”™s general manager.
“We all recognize that the mall is a destination,” said Parseghian, who is also the chairman of the Rockland Business Association”™s tourism and hospitality committee.
He said the hotel regularly books package groups from other parts of the country who come to Rockland solely for the mall.
“We have had bus tours from places such as Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio,” he said. “I think they”™re thrilled by the immensity of it all.”
Clarkstown Supervisor Alex Gromack said that while the mall brings in revenue to the county, the town sees very little of it.
He said that while the mall provides about $52 million in sales tax revenue annually to the county, and $13.5 million to the Clarkstown Central School District, the town only receives about $5 million.
Gromack said that is virtually negated by the money the town spends on mall-related services, such as providing a police presence. He estimated the town spends about $3.5 million on police protection dedicated to the mall.
“The biggest winner, economically, is the county of Rockland, and then the school district,” he said. “We break about even.”
Gromack believes the town probably doesn”™t benefit that much from people coming to the mall and spending money at other places in Clarkstown.
“The mall is a destination spot; people coming to the mall aren”™t really going any other places.”
Ten years in, the town supervisor believes the mall”™s positive impact on Clarkstown is minimal.
“From my best perspective, the mall has not been an economic windfall for the town,” he said. “It”™s had a marginal or flat impact.”
Rockland Business Association President Al Samuels is of the opinion that between the jobs it provides, the revenue to the county, and its status as a tourist destination, the Palisades Center has been a boon for Rockland.
“I have always been a proponent of the mall,” he said. “This was basically a brownfield and it became a very practical use.”
Samuels said the mall “absolutely has added” to the county”™s tourism and hospitality industry.
He said while the mall does necessitate an additional police presence, it has not produced the high amount of crime that was predicted when it was first being built.
“There is crime, you”™ll get that in any retail environment, but there is no street crime,” he said. “There have been fights and things like that. That”™s just a problem of population; we”™re not a farming community anymore.”