Three redevelopments rejuvenate section of Pembina Highway

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This article was published 08/05/2017 (3097 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One of the city’s oldest retail strips — Pembina Highway — is experiencing another mini construction boom, with three new redevelopment projects within a few blocks of one another.

The projects include a new flagship Winnipeg store for musical instruments retailer Long & McQuade at 1845 Pembina, a new microbrewery — Stone Angel Brewery — at 1875 Pembina and a new pharmacy/medical clinic — Leila Pharmacy/Bison Family Medical — at 1686 Pembina.

The 25,000-square-foot Long & McQuade store celebrated its official grand opening last month, although it’s been in operation since late November.

The building housing the new pharmacy/medical clinic is undergoing extensive interior and exterior renovations and likely won’t open until July or August.

Renovations to the strip mall that will house the new craft brewery aren’t underway, so it also won’t open until July or August at the earliest.

Winnipeg’s Shindico Realty Inc. was the leasing agent for all three properties. Michael Stronger, the firm’s senior vice-president of retail and investment, said there has been a resurgence in interest and redevelopment activity along Pembina Highway.

He cited the redevelopment of the Fort Richmond and Richmond West plazas on south Pembina Highway, which included the opening last year of a new 60,000-sq.-ft. Sobeys grocery store.

A new Peavey Mart store is scheduled to open this fall in the former Zellers space.

As well, the former Liquor Mart was demolished and replaced with a new one, and a new 30,000-sq.-ft. multi-tenant retail complex was built.

Stronger noted the former Round Table restaurant at 800 Pembina was recently converted into the Brazen Hall Kitchen & Brewery.

“That is a massive shot in the arm for Pembina Highway,” he said.

Arguably the highest-profile development in the area in recent years is the new Winnipeg Blue Bombers football stadium (Investors Group Field) on the University of Manitoba campus.

Stronger maintains that’s not what has been driving the renewed interest in Pembina Highway.

“Pembina Highway is very much like Portage Avenue. It’s a major thoroughfare… and it never lost its presence. It’s just that some other areas have taken some of the attention away from it,” he said, referring to the explosion of retail development in the nearby Kenaston-McGillivray area.

“But new construction is extremely expensive and it’s hard to find an existing building in that area that meets your needs.

“Plus tenants are realizing a Pembina Highway address has tremendous value. The traffic counts… haven’t gone down — they’re still phenomenal — plus everyone knows how to find you.”

He said the retail vacancy rate on Pembina Highway is low, “and when smaller spaces — 1,200 to 2,000 square feet — come up, they’re snapped up very quickly.”

Jason Charney, manager of the new Long & McQuade store, said the company considered building a new store, but opted instead to buy the 30,000-sq.-ft. former Office Depot building and renovate it.

“It was quite the rehab,” he said. “It was a big, open shell, basically, when we got it and we did a complete redo of the interior and exterior.”

Charney said the Ontario-based firm has 75 retail stores in Canada, including two in Winnipeg, and the new Pembina Highway store is one of its crown jewels.

“This is probably one of the nicest music stores in North America at this point. It has a free-floating, curved guitar wall when you first walk in that holds… around 350 guitars. So it’s quite the thing.”

He said the store had outgrown its longtime home at the corner of Pembina Highway and Stafford Street. The new location provides more than enough space. In fact, there’s an extra 5,000 sq. ft. the company plans to lease to another tenant.

Charney said the company spent “millions of dollars” on the renovations.

“But it’s been absolutely the perfect spot for us,” he added. “Right out of the gate, we’ve been busy.”

He said it’s great to see other businesses investing in the area, adding, “we are very excited to be a part of its rejuvenation.”

The developer of the new pharmacy/medical clinic at 1686 Pembina — Winnipeg-based Leila Pharmacy — is spending about $2.8 million on renovations to the interior and exterior of the 10,600-sq.-ft. building it’s leasing, said co-owner Darren Murphy.

Murphy said the company, which owns seven other pharmacies in Winnipeg, wanted one in the south end of the city. The Pembina Highway location was a perfect fit because of the high traffic volumes and large number of apartment blocks in the area.

He said the redeveloped building will include 2,000 sq. ft. of office space on a newly built second floor. The main-floor space will include a full-service pharmacy, a medical clinic with 12 examination rooms and one large procedure room, a medical laboratory, an X-ray facility, a medical supplies store, a small café and classroom space.

The Stone Angel Brewery will be located in the former Vodka Rocks/Shooter’s Billiards space. Company president Paul McMullan said it will include a 5,000-sq.-ft. brewery and a 3,600-sq.-ft. tap room.

McMullan said he and business partners Paul Clerkin and James DeFehr liked the location because it’s close to the new rapid-transit corridor, there are few craft breweries or brewpubs in that end of Winnipeg and the population in the south end is growing rapidly. Being close to the U of M campus also doesn’t hurt, he added.

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The new HomeSense and Marshalls stores in Kildonan Place Shopping Centre will celebrate their grand opening May 16.

The stores are sharing a 45,000-sq.-ft. space within the former Target store in the Regent Avenue mall. The superstore had originally been scheduled to open April 18, but renovations took longer than expected.

Both companies are owned by U.S.-based TJX Companies Inc.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca