Off Exit 9 of Interstate 87 in Clifton Park, New York, Clifton Park Center is a shopping center. Its indoor section is built around a central food court.
It opened in 1976 as Clifton Country Mall, a C-shaped enclosed mall. In 2006 a new owner began tearing out large sections of it, including the ones that linked JCPenney to the rest of the mall.
The demolition didn't stop there. By March 2015 only 40 percent of the old indoor mall was left standing, and a new Regal cinema and two Hilton hotels had gone up on the property.
By late September 2026, the center's retail space was nearly full. Several of the stores that arrived in its latest leasing round can be entered from outside without going through the indoor corridor.
Clifton Country Mall opens near Exit 9
In 1976 a Buffalo developer opened Clifton Country Mall at 22 Clifton Country Road in Clifton Park, New York, near Exit 9 of Interstate 87.
JCPenney, The Carl Company, and A&P were its anchors.
The property goes by Clifton Park Center now and is part enclosed mall, part outdoor shopping center.
The 1976 mall was enclosed and shaped like a C. Inside, tenants were slow to arrive, and many storefronts remained empty for years.
A&P later gave way to Price Chopper. In 1979, Clifton Country Mall Limited Partnership hired an architect to design an addition.
A new south wing brings Caldor and a cinema
In 1984 a long new wing opened, running south from the C. It wrapped around The Carl Company's store, which shoppers could now enter from more than one side of the mall, and put a food court behind it.
Farther south the wing opened into a larger court with a fountain and a movie theater, then ran on to a new anchor at its far end, Caldor.
With the wing finished, the mall was far larger than it had been at opening.
The food court, the fountain court, and the theater sat side by side in the new section, and they gave people reasons to come that had nothing to do with department stores.
By 1985 the cinema was running six screens.
Caldor and Steinbach close, Boscov's arrives
The anchors changed again in 1991, when Steinbach moved into the former A&P space, and around then The Carl Company's store became Marshalls.
By the late 1990s the enclosed mall had empty corridors. In 1999 Caldor closed as its chain collapsed, and Steinbach closed the same year.
That left JCPenney and Marshalls as the only large anchors.
Clifton Park officials saw the empty Caldor site as a chance to bring in Boscov's, already established at Colonie Center.
Wilton was also in the running, so Town Supervisor Phil Barrett helped rally residents by letter and email. Boscov's picked Clifton Park.
Crews were razing Caldor by April 12, 2000, and its two-story replacement opened as Boscov's at 10 a.m. on Friday, November 3, 2000.
That arrival came with a broader refresh of the property. The exterior was redone and the parking lot resurfaced.
Before November was over, Clifton Country Mall had a new name: Clifton Park Center. The Steinbach building stayed empty.
JCPenney is cut off from the indoor mall
In December 2005 DCG Development appeared before the town Planning Board while it was still negotiating to buy the mall.
Its concept would tear away large portions of the enclosed building, but JCPenney and Boscov's had lease rights that shaped what DCG could do.
Parking was one point of friction.
DCG proposed increasing the count from 2,786 spaces to 3,423, partly to satisfy JCPenney's and Boscov's lease requirements.
Town consultants questioned the need for so much parking and objected to spaces directly against the storefronts, where fire lanes and traffic also had to fit.
Visibility was another. DCG proposed changing plantings along Clifton Country Road and removing part of a berm along the southern property line.
Consultants warned that the landscaping also screened parking from the road and buffered homes to the south.
DCG bought the mall in April 2006 for $11.1 million.
By May 9 demolition had begun on the store sections that joined Marshalls to JCPenney on the east and to the empty Steinbach building on the west.
That day the Planning Board approved the central redevelopment unanimously.
By 2007 most of the enclosed section north of Marshalls was gone.
JCPenney and the Steinbach building no longer connected to the indoor mall, and new shops faced the parking lot.
The enclosed core was now the 1984 section around Marshalls, the food court, the theater, and Boscov's.
The Steinbach building comes down, hotels go up
Demolition of the Steinbach building began in August 2009.
Chipotle and Metro Mattress were among the retailers announced for the replacement, which DCG expected to divide into roughly 10 to 15 storefronts.
Its reduced footprint would also open sightlines across the center from Route 146 and Clifton Country Road.
On the indoor side, the old cinema was demolished over the winter of 2010 to 2011.
A 10-screen Regal with a premium-format RPX auditorium replaced it and opened with a midnight screening on November 18, 2011.
Beside the new theater rose a five-story Hilton Garden Inn, built with a direct connection into the mall's interior.
DCG started a second hotel, a Homewood Suites by Hilton, in the southwest parking area in April 2014.
It went up as a freestanding building that shared the center's parking, and it was finished in 2015.
By March 2015 only 40 percent of the original enclosed mall remained.
That month the interior had seven vacancies, and the outside of the center had one.
Storefronts on the parking lot again
DCG sold the center on March 10, 2023, to CPC Development I for $55 million. At the time of the sale the center drew about 4.8 million visits a year.
Its leasing program in 2025 brought in Sephora, J.Crew Factory, and Five Below, among others.
Several of the incoming stores got their own entrances from the parking lot, the arrangement DCG had used in 2006 and 2009 to shorten the walk from car to store.
Five Below's grand-opening weekend began on February 20, 2026.
In 1999 Caldor and Steinbach closed, and large parts of the enclosed mall stood vacant.
By September 27, 2026, the retail space was nearly full, and the center was drawing more than 6.3 million visits a year.
What remains of the enclosed mall sits around the central food court.
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