City may get its first IHOP franchise

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This article was published 17/09/2016 (3334 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg may be getting its first International House of Pancakes (IHOP) restaurant.

The latest site plan for the high-profile Seasons retail/residential/commercial development on the northwest corner of Kenaston Boulevard and Sterling Lyon Parkway shows a new IHOP restaurant on the site, as well as a new Dairy Queen outlet.

A spokesperson for Seasons’ primary developer — Regina-based Harvard Developments Inc. — would neither confirm nor deny the two retail chains will be tenants.

Veronica Eno, who is Harvard’s development manager for the site, said Harvard’s policy is to let its tenants announce any planned store openings.

IHOP and Dairy Queen of Canada could not be reached Friday.

The first IHOP restaurant opened in 1958 in California, and two years later the company began expanding through franchising. Now a wholly owned subsidiary of DineEquity, Inc., it has more than 1,650 outlets in the United States, Bahrain, Canada, Dubai (UAE), Guatemala, Kuwait, Mexico, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The 24 Canadian outlets are in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.

Eno said about 30 retail building pads are planned for the 47.3-hectare Seasons development, which is under construction immediately north of the similarly named Seasons of Tuxedo development, whose anchor tenants include IKEA and Cabela’s. The 30 Seasons building pads include 10 pads on the Sterling Lyon Parkway side of the development.

She said the first of those 10 pads, which the latest plan shows as including the new Dairy Queen outlet, is nearing completion. Work also will be getting underway within the next two weeks on a second pad, she added. She also wouldn’t reveal what tenant is expected to occupy that pad.

Seasons tenants announced so far include the city’s first premium fashion outlet mall (the $200-million Outlet Collection Winnipeg), a four-star, 127-room hotel (the Hilton Garden Inn Winnipeg South), a Porche Centre Winnipeg dealership, an Audi Winnipeg dealership, a 400-unit apartment complex, an assisted-living seniors’ complex and a Good Earth Coffeehouse.

Work is underway on the hotel, the factory outlet mall and the first phase of the rental apartment complex.

Eno said the outlet mall, which is being developed by Ontario-based Ivanhoe Cambridge, and Phase 1 of the apartment complex are scheduled to open next spring. The hotel, which is being built by Winnipeg’s SK Developments Inc., is expected to open late next summer.

“It’s going to be a busy place here in the spring and early summer,” she added.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca