Real estate development and leasing firm Block & Company Inc. reported in its quarterly review that plans have been set to bring two new chain restaurant locations to vacant spots in northeast Johnson County.
The former Taco Bell at 6591 Johnson Drive in the Mission West Shopping Center will be transformed into a Slim Chickens restaurant.
And the former Winstead’s at 8817 Shawnee Mission Parkway will become a new Freddy’s Frozen Custard and Steakburger restaurant. The company had been negotiating the deal to bring Freddy’s to the site for several months.
Block says they plan to start demolishing the former Winstead’s building later this month. Current plans call for the new restaurant to open this fall. The Merriam Winstead’s closed in January 2017, part of a wave of attrition for the once iconic Kansas City chain over the past couple years. (The Lenexa Winstead’s will cease operations on Sunday, leaving just three locations in operation).
The former Taco Bell building will remain standing, but the company will renovate the facade as well as the interior to ready it for the Slim Chickens location. That work is expected to begin “soon” with an anticipated opening in the second half of 2019.
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