(Ian Ritter is national online editor for GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.)

QUEENS, NY-Alexander's Inc., a REIT managed and one-third-owned by Vornado Realty Trust, has gotten government approval to build Rego Park II, a mixed-use project here with 600,000 sf of retail and 450 apartment units. A 122,000-sf Century 21 discount department store will anchor the project, for which Paramus, NJ-based Alexander's executives do not yet have a construction or completion date.

The development, located at the intersection of the Long Island Expressway and Junction Boulevard in the Rego Park neighborhood, will have four levels of retail. Vornado has not yet announced any other tenants that will go into the center.

Wal-Mart was http originally slated to go into Rego Park II with its first New York City store, but Alexander's proceeded without the retailer after community opposition to the project. "We do a lot of business with Wal-Mart and were talking to them, among others, about Rego Park," says Steven Roth, the chairman/CEO of Vornado, which is also based in Paramus, in the company's annual report. "We believe in Wal-Mart, but Wal-Mart has its critics, and when it became certain that the entire project could be rejected if Wal-Mart were a tenant, we had no choice but to continue without them."