Dairy Queen targets Orlando for expansion
Fast-food chain is planning up to 30 new stores by 2025
One of America’s oldest and most beloved fast-food brands is launching a multi-year expansion in Orlando with plans to open as many as 30 new stores by 2025.
Dairy Queen started selling its iconic soft-serve ice cream and burgers in Sanford back in 1954 – years before Walt Disney ever scouted the Orlando area for a new theme park. The company now operates a dozen franchise stores in Central Florida, including one in Leesburg that opened May 3. Another new store is under construction and scheduled to open on Lee Vista Boulevard in October.
Jim Kerr, executive vice president of franchise development for Dairy Queen, told
the region’s population growth and demographics make it a ripe for a deeper market penetration.
The company wants to add at five new stores per year beginning in 2021.
The Minneapolis-based company has hired David Bulger as a franchise development coordinator based in Orlando to assist with the new store development, market analysis, permitting and opening.
A typical store has indoor seating for 66, a large freezer capacity for cakes and take-out items, and a covered patio. The company also offers a smaller prototype with seating for 40-50 customers.
Margaritaville changes it up
Living the resort lifestyle in Margaritaville Orlando could get more affordable now that the developer has scrapped and redesigned the final four phases to add more density and a different mix of housing products.
Peter Brown, Central Florida asset manager for Encore Funds, told the master developer will stop building the Key West-style vacation cottages after Phase 7 in favor of less expensive units with fewer bedrooms. That includes a new 350-unit apartment complex in Phase 8 and a condo hotel in Phase 10.
Brown said he thought the previous development plan was too heavily weighted toward detached cottages, and he thought it made sense to offer more affordable investment options on the final pods, which are closer to S.R. 429.
The Boca Raton-based developer filed a revised Preliminary Subdivision Plan with Osceola County that would create 835 dwelling units across phases 7, 8 and 9.
There will be fewer eight-bedroom vacation homes and more two-bedroom multifamily units, Brown said.
One of the largest hotels in Central Florida will reopen June 25 with safety measures in place, as Orlando’s tourism industry begins to emerge from a prolonged closure because of coronavirus.
Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center will space out seating at its pools, provide a selfguided scavenger hunt to encourage social distancing and sanitize its public areas frequently using what the company calls “hospitalgrade disinfectants.”
The hotel’s ownership group has been consulting with Vanderbilt University Medical School as it created its reopening plan.
“The summer travel season is quickly approaching, and Gaylord Palms is reopening to visitors who are anxious to get out and celebrate summer,” General Manager Johann Krieger said in a news release.
Gaylord Palms has more than 1,400 hotel rooms and is located just east of Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom theme park.
The hotel industry in Central Florida has taken a major hit from the coronavirus pandemic that canceled flights, shut down theme parks and brought the tourism industry to a crawl.
The coronavirus pandemic will cost Orange County at least $100 million in anticipated tourist taxes this year, said Randy Singh, deputy Orange County administrator for financial services, in late April.
“It could even get worse depending on what happens over the