Another Mall at Rego Center?

Forest Hills residents may have yet another shopping center in their backyard sometime in the next four or five years, if a recent meeting held by is any indication.

Vornado Realty, the massive company, which built the red-roofed Rego Center Mall on Junction Boulevard, has designs on taking an empty lot across the street and doing the same thing again.

Community Board 6 District Manager Frank Gulluscio said that Community Board 6 met privately with the realty company, as well as representatives of the borough presidents office to talk about the construction of yet another shopping center, this one with a school and residential housing possibly built in.

"They made a very general, very preliminary presentation to us before they went to the borough president's office with it," Gulluscio said. "They're interested in that property, and they said they'd be looking at a retail-slash-housing-slash-school in that area over there."

The Rego Center Mall opened in the spring, home to department stores, CostCo, restaurants and more.

Since it opened, there have been concerned about traffic snarls in the area, which many already consider to be a difficult spot because of multiple on- and off-ramps to and from the Long Island Expressway and the towering buildings of LeFrak City.

Gulluscio said that his two biggest concerns for the area are what would happen to traffic and quality of life for residents who live on the affected streets, and how the school is likely to be created and funded, if it happens.

"Let's look at the traffic patterns around there a lot closer, a lot better," Gulluscio said. "How's quality of life for the people that live in those surrounding buildings? How's it affect them with more traffic and more people?"

Gulluscio added that there is currently no money in the five year capital plan of the board for a school in the area, a big concern for those who would want to see an educational facility built in.

"Who's going to pay for that school? Is it an elementary school, is it a high school, is it a middle school? There's a lot going on that we don't know about."