Massive Outlet Collection retail development coming to Winnipeg

WINNIPEG – A new retail outlet mall will offer 385,000 square feet of shopping to Winnipeggers and tourists in 2017, developers say.

Outlet Collection at Winnipeg “will offer superior brands of value retail from more than 90 renowned retailers,” Ivanhoe Cambridge, Harvard Developments and Forster Projects said in a news release.

The mall, to be built on a 16-hectare site northwest of Kenaston Boulevard and Sterling Lyon Parkway, will include an indoor shopping mall and dining, the news release said.

Ivanhoe Cambridge, a real estate company with subsidiaries in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Brazil and Asia, has Outlet Collection malls opening in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., in May and in Edmonton in 2016.

The developers believe it will be a destination mall that will bring in shoppers from surrounding areas.

Blair Forster, Harvard’s vice-president, development, said people in Winnipeg will be impressed.

Ikea and the Jets were key factors in wanting to develop in Winnipeg, he said.

He wouldn’t say which stores are interested in setting up shop in the city.

“We aren’t in a position right now to release any names, but suffice to say it will be all the premium fashion brands you are used to seeing on your travels down to the States,” Forster said.

If the plans sound familiar, that is because Harvard Developments previously announced another outlet mall on the same site called Outlets of Seasons. Initial plans put the opening in spring 2015.

“We were fully prepared to execute on that, then Ivanhoe approached us and we felt the combined efforts of both companies was stronger than us going on our own,” Forster said.

Harvard acquired the site in January.

Initial construction will start within 30 days, with major construction starting later this year or in early 2015.

WATCH: Take a look at an animated artist’s conception of the Outlet Collection at Niagara, scheduled to open next month.