Content area
Full Text
Notorious Queens native Donald Trump isn't exactly coming back to Jamaica, but he wants to be highly conspicuous in nearby Rego Park.
There, Mr. Trump is planning to flex his gilded muscles by taking over development of Alexander's controversial shopping mall, recruiting glitzier retailers and polishing up the mall's interior design.
The best-selling author and self-promoting developer may even use the name Trump Center for The Mall at Rego Park, or at least wield his heftiest marketing tool -- his name -- to refashion the project.
The planned changes in the Rego Park mall come as Mr. Trump makes a move to grab a sizable piece of Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores. Among other major retail chains, Federated owns Bloomingdale's and Abraham & Straus, New York stores Mr. Trump has courted in the past.
His desire to buy $15 million of Federated stock and possibly acquire up to 15% of it at the same time that he is digging deeper into Rego Park may not be coincidental.
The casino operator and owner of marble-filled Trump Plaza is hardly about to hang his neon shingle out over a mall anchored by the unglamorous likes of Alexander's Inc. and Sears Roebuck & Co.
Robin Farkas, chairman of Alexander's, declined to comment on the changes at Rego Park, saying plans were preliminary. Mr. Trump couldn't be...