Search on for new revolving-restaurant operator

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This article was published 15/07/2011 (5224 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE managers of Fort Garry Place are anxious to get the Garry Street building’s revolving restaurant spinning again after 21/2 years of it sitting idle.

Edison Rental Agency has Bob Borys, a leasing specialist with the Winnipeg office of Colliers International, beating the bushes for a new operator for the unique property, which sits atop the highrise residential/commercial complex and offers a bird’s eye view of the downtown and The Forks.

And Borys isn’t limiting his search to Winnipeg.

He’s marketing the property to restaurant chains throughout Canada, as well as to restaurateurs on the east and west coasts of the United States who have experience operating revolving restaurants.

“I’ve been dealing with one company out of Florida and they’ve expressed an extreme interest,” Borys said in an interview.

“The difficulty is finding a local operator (to manage it for them). They want someone who knows the market and the people.”

Borys and Edison general manager Frank Koch-Shulte said they don’t have a deadline for getting a deal done because they want to get the right restaurant and the right operator.

Borys said it’s an unusual setup because it’s spread out over four floors. There is reception/lounge/banquet space on the 28th floor, the kitchen/bakery is on the 29th, the restaurant is on the 30th and there’s another lounge/banquet area on the 31st floor.

“A lot of local operators are not equipped to run a setup like that,” he said.

“We’ve had a lot of concepts talked about, but we also want someone who is going to be there for a long time and will blend in with the building and provide good service.”

Because there are apartments below it, Koch-Shulte said it also can’t be an operation that generates a lot of noise.

Edison had been marketing the space off and on without success. But with some of the new development taking place downtown, Koch-Shulte and Borys said it’s a good time to take another run at finding a tenant.

“There is definitely a lot going on in the downtown,” Koch-Shulte, said, citing the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the return of an NHL team to the MTS Centre, and a major commercial development across the street from the arena on the north side of Portage Avenue.

Borys said the CMHR, which opens in 2013, and the Winnipeg Jets, which begin play this fall, will bring lots of people to the downtown.

“That’s what helps to fill a restaurant like that,” he said.

The previous restaurant in that space was the Royal Crown and its operators — the Gill Family Trust — cited declining sales and a lack of convenient customer parking spaces as two key reasons for its closing.

But Koch-Shulte said parking spaces in Fort Garry Place’s parkade can be made available for restaurant patrons.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca