By Sarah Wallace

Fast food giant to open chain in Melfort

Feb 22, 2017 | 5:00 AM

A national retailer will soon be opening its first chain in the city of Melfort.

McDonald’s recently finalized a deal with the city and Avatex Development Corporation to purchase 1.2 acres in the StoneGate Shopping Centre development.

Brent Lutz, community development manager for the city, said this will be the first McDonald’s in the city.

“The focus and intent of the shopping centre was to attract national retailers with the strategy in mind that national retailers will bring people to the community and once people are in the community they will patronize other businesses that are located here,” he said.

Lutz said from the inception of the centre McDonald’s was always considered a future tenant.

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McDonald’s has already finalized its 2017 construction plans so the city won’t see any construction on the location until 2018.

“The site is shovel-ready, we prepared it a couple of years ago and so this site could certainly fill a gap if [McDonald’s] ran into some difficulties on a project elsewhere where they weren’t able to proceed because something wasn’t ready for them,” Lutz said.

He added city staff will seek out options to speed up the process.

The McDonald’s building will be located at the South entrance to the StoneGate Shopping Centre.

McDonald’s will be joining Canadian Tire, Marks Work Warehouse, Canalta Hotels, Tim Hortons and Boston Pizza which are already up and running.

Sobeys has also purchased a site but have yet to start developing.

swallace@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahthesquid