Crossroads Mall

[kevinpate]

If true, I can see it making sense. They certainly wouldn't be the first entity to have more than one metro location for increasing public access.

[soonergirl]

I also wondered if they would be introducing a different concept... don't they now own several of the furniture stores in town?

[oneforone]

I've asked a few folks at Sears every once in a while about their future plans, any moves or closures ahead, and they tell me there aren't...but that store, to me, is in a shambles.

I pass by that store daily and the only time I see any traffic there is when they have had a couple of huge sales. Most days there only a four five cars parked on the Western side. From what I can tell they have closed all the entrances except the back dock side and the Western side. I have talked to a few Sears employees myself. From they tell me, the only reason why Sears keeps that store open is because of the large warehouse and the fact that the store is paid for. The only expenses is maintence, payroll and utilities.

Sooner or later they will move. Sears cooperate will not want to throw money into the store once the place becomes a money pit repair wise.

If the area were more like Edmond, Moore, Norman or Yukon they would have torn down the store a couple of years ago and reopened as the anchor of a new power center like Belle Isle or Town Center. It will be interesting if Sears moves or closes. I think you will see a power play between Wal-Mart and Integris. A friend of mine works for Integris he says the main thing killing that hospital is the fact that it is landlocked. They need more land so they can add more services. The guy that owns the apartments to the north wants too much money. So Sears would be the next best option. They could build a tunnel or a skybridge that would take the safety hazards of Western out of the picture. The bad news for the hospital is if they do not expand they may sell. move or close Southwest Medical Center. Regular paitents alone are not bringing in enough money to keep the place profitable.

[grantgeneral78]

I pass by that store daily and the only time I see any traffic there is when they have had a couple of huge sales. Most days there only a four five cars parked on the Western side. From what I can tell they have closed all the entrances except the back dock side and the Western side. I have talked to a few Sears employees myself. From they tell me, the only reason why Sears keeps that store open is because of the large warehouse and the fact that the store is paid for. The only expenses is maintence, payroll and utilities.

Sooner or later they will move. Sears cooperate will not want to throw money into the store once the place becomes a money pit repair wise.

If the area were more like Edmond, Moore, Norman or Yukon they would have torn down the store a couple of years ago and reopened as the anchor of a new power center like Belle Isle or Town Center. It will be interesting if Sears moves or closes. I think you will see a power play between Wal-Mart and Integris. A friend of mine works for Integris he says the main thing killing that hospital is the fact that it is landlocked. They need more land so they can add more services. The guy that owns the apartments to the north wants too much money. So Sears would be the next best option. They could build a tunnel or a skybridge that would take the safety hazards of Western out of the picture. The bad news for the hospital is if they do not expand they may sell. move or close Southwest Medical Center. Regular paitents alone are not bringing in enough money to keep the place profitable.

I have seen a preliminary plan on the hospital in the future when it obtains the sears. The plan shows a pedestriam walkway over the top of western, with a few modern glass buildings on the property.

[progressiveboy]

I personally think they should demolish the Mall. It is in an area of great decline and alot of blight in my opinion. The remaining stores could relocate if they choose to do so since there is so much new building going on in the city. I believe that this part of the city needs to reinvent itself and get rid of the unsightly, run down , "outdated" buildings. Crossroads has a very dated, dingy look and they do not have any stores that stand out and make it a destination of shopping.

[Jesseda]

maybe they can turn the anchor stores into hotels and the main part of the mall into a bunch of bars and night clubs, they can call the place new orleans, anyone who wants gets to wasted has a choice of 4 hotels,(the old anchor stores)

[jbrown84]

A friend of mine works for Integris he says the main thing killing that hospital is the fact that it is landlocked. They need more land so they can add more services. The guy that owns the apartments to the north wants too much money. So Sears would be the next best option. They could build a tunnel or a skybridge that would take the safety hazards of Western out of the picture.

That's ridiculous. That hospital is surrounded by an ocean of parking, more so than any other hospital in town. Build a freaking parking garage. It hasn't stopped them at the Baptist site.

[SoonerGirl26]

I personally think they should demolish the Mall. It is in an area of great decline and alot of blight in my opinion. The remaining stores could relocate if they choose to do so since there is so much new building going on in the city. I believe that this part of the city needs to reinvent itself and get rid of the unsightly, run down , "outdated" buildings. Crossroads has a very dated, dingy look and they do not have any stores that stand out and make it a destination of shopping.

I agree with you totally! Bulldoze and start over. It really is sad...it used to be pretty good mall back in the day.

[JWil]

one could look at it this way... how nice of an area is west reno?

-M

Better than the Crossroads area for sure.

[roontburger2006]

I personally think they should demolish the Mall. It is in an area of great decline and alot of blight in my opinion. The remaining stores could relocate if they choose to do so since there is so much new building going on in the city. I believe that this part of the city needs to reinvent itself and get rid of the unsightly, run down , "outdated" buildings. Crossroads has a very dated, dingy look and they do not have any stores that stand out and make it a destination of shopping.

I also completely agree. Its outdated and there is no reason to go to Crossroads other than Steve and Barry's, because it doesn't offer anything every other mall already has. What's sad is you'd think being RIGHT BY I-35 and 240 it'd be an amazing location for something, if they made something updated and cool.

[Thunder]

I was at Crossroads two time recently. Not much traffic inside the mall, but it does seem to have more places being open than available spaces. Steve and Barry's is having a 100 Stores Closing Sale and I was unsure if this specific one is closing or not.

What managements need to do is have a complete interior makeover. I'm not sure about the outside bricks, that may be a bit too far for now. There is also a need for a complete makeover of the entire parking space. Once they have those taken care of, they need to set out television ads showing the new interior styles.

They also need to replace the doors on all main entrances into the mall.

One problem with this is obtaining a huge loan. Is there a bank out there that is willing and capable of giving out such a huge loan? They may look at Crossroads being near bankrupt or closure.

The managements need a convincing business plan.

[oneforone]

The financial markets are not going to help retail one bit. In fact you can probably make a safe bet on that several retailers will fold, reduce operations or sell out to other competitors after the Christmas Season.

The Christmas Season will not be very kind to retail. Credit will be off the table or reduced to a large percentage of the population. The only way the retail industry will be able to make descent profit is if they bring back layaway. I bet Wal-Mart is filling like they shot themselves in the foot about now.

You can almost bet their will be some serious Black Friday Bargains this year some that will probably never see again.

If traffic does not pick up at Crossroads during the Christmas Season. After the holiday season I think you will see them closing certain entrances, blocking off certain areas and moving the existing stores to one centralized area.

[SoonerDave]

The financial markets are not going to help retail one bit. In fact you can probably make a safe bet on that several retailers will fold, reduce operations or sell out to other competitors after the Christmas Season.

The Christmas Season will not be very kind to retail. Credit will be off the table or reduced to a large percentage of the population. The only way the retail industry will be able to make descent profit is if they bring back layaway. I bet Wal-Mart is filling like they shot themselves in the foot about now.

You can almost bet their will be some serious Black Friday Bargains this year some that will probably never see again.

If traffic does not pick up at Crossroads during the Christmas Season. After the holiday season I think you will see them closing certain entrances, blocking off certain areas and moving the existing stores to one centralized area.

I think this overlooks several fundamental issues.

First, credit cards aren't magically disappearing. The credit problem facing the financial industry right now has as much to do with the inability to raise short-term capital to fund day-to-day operations as much as anything else. Not saying it is limited to this, but its a significant portion of it. This has almost no effect whatsoever on the retail credit in the form of plastic that's still very much in circulation.

Second, Crossroads can't just force existing leaseholders to pack up and move to an arbitrary space in the mall. Each tenant has a lease, and presumably each space in the mall is leased at a specific rate based on how relatively attractive a given spot is within the mall in terms of traffic, visibility, etc.

Third, layaway isn't a magic profit center. In fact, its really just another form of credit. Retail operations make money by moving merchandise as quickly as possible with minimum expense, and that merchandise is moved by consumers spending money. Layaway implies the availability of space to hold unclaimed inventory, and that's square footage that's not displaying new merchandise to be sold, but does have to be suppied with electricity, heat, air, and all the other elements of overhead that go along with it.

The entire retail question is actually pretty simple - the consumer. What motivates the consumer to spend or not spend? Lots of things; discretionary cash, credit, confidence in their employment, savings, whimsy, you name it. Yes, there are probably going to be some epic Black Friday deals this year. But the problems of retailers in the US are complicated well beyond a solution as simple as "bring back layaway."

-SoonerDave

[jbrown84]

Yeah, I don't think Crossroads is to the point that they will need to close off entire wings, and they really can't force stores out. Right now everything is spread out and there really isn't THAT MUCH empty space outside the empty anchor spaces.

[Easy180]

Ate at Texas Roadhouse tonight...Was done around 6:40 and I swear the Crossroads theater had something like 5 cars in the lot

[ssandedoc]

Just went to the third floor at Dillards today, completey empty!!!

[southernskye]

When Crossroads Mall opened in 1975 it was the 9th largest shopping mall in the United States, and the largest in Oklahoma. It is still the second largest mall in Oklahoma at 1.3 million square feet.

My parents have fond memories of the mall. They remember taking school field trips to the mall wonder, with buses in the parking lot coming from neighboring states as well. The parking lot is where everyone learned to drive. Only the best and busiest stores had locations in there. The mall's location couldn't be beat, at the intersection of I-240 and I-35 just to the east of the heart of south Oklahoma City.

In hindsight the picture wasn't all as rosy as it seemed. The mall actually officially kick-started the worst of Oklahoma City's urban white flight, which led to downtown and the most central historic districts in town becoming poster children of blight and neglect. Retail that was scattered across the inner southside neighborhoods all either died away or flocked to Crossroads Mall, taking away economic activity and niehgborhood activity. The inner southside became the most blighted part of Oklahoma City with the advent of Crossroads Mall.

Today the location is the reason this mall is dying. The southside is just too dumpy that now it's starting to hurt Crossroads Mall, and as the suburbs of the southside have stretched further and further south enveloping Moore and Norman as well, pockets of retail have developed along major corridors, especially along I-240 west of the mall, and along I-35 south of the mall all the way down to Norman, a good 25-minute drag.

Crossroads Mall is outdated and has not been significantly renovated in decades either despite touting a "major renovation" (that basically meant new paint and light fixtures and nothing else) every now and then. The expanding retail booms in Moore and Midwest City have taken its toll on Crossroads Mall with the closure of its J.C. Penney's, when separate Moore and Midwest City locations were opened instead in brand-new outdoor shopping plazas. The 90s were marked with loosing Montgomery Wards, an anchor that remained unfilled until 2005 or so when Steve & Barry's University Sportswear took over that space.

And therein lies the problem. Crossroads Mall is not doing bad, per se. It's still dying very quickly however. What used to be a family shopping destination now is a gang hangout and a glorified cheapo depot. They had to institute "family hours" recently which only means banning teenagers from the mall after 6 because drugs and gangs were getting to be such a problem at the mall. Steve & Barry's sells mostly plus-sized NCAA merchandise at steeply discounted prices, and is not exactly a fixture you would see at any respectable mall...they don't even sell any OU merchandise because they can't get licensed by OU. Chain stores that were respectable have been replaced by stores that are not, like for example Shelley Wong's Things, Kool Stuff and Your Choice Rug Design. So occupancy is not so much the issue, although vacant store spaces are getting noticeable throughout the mall.

The next anchor to go will be Macy's--one of the bought-out Foley's locations. Macy's is starting to realize that Crossroads Mall is not exactly a mall fit for a store as nice as Macy's, and they have been mostly receiving clearance merchandise to sell. None of the respectable stores in the mall (there are few) and basically limited to American Eagle and Pac Sun have been meeting their sales quotas for a long time, and if locations were to open in Midwest City or Moore, Crossroads locations would be closed to get out of the way.

There's also a new factor contributing to the demise of Crossroads Mall--other than suburban sprawl further out, a high-crime reputation, a poor image (nobody really says, "I'm goin to Crossroads Mall!" like they would, "I'm goin to Penn Square, or Quail Springs!"), and demographics--now growth inside I-240 seems to have it out for Crossroads. Downtown is seeing a resurgence, with 2,900 new residential units planned or under way currently, talks of major new shopping and office developments, and the advent of NBA basketball, the Big XII basketball tournament, major parades and festivals, major regatta events on the river, and everything else contributing to the resurgence of not just Downtown, but the whole OKC metro area in general.

Public perception right now is that Downtown is good and wonderful, and is coming back in grand fashion, while Crossroads Mall is evil and blighted--which is completely the opposite from when the mall opened.

That and the fact that the county dump is located just 1 mile to the east, and the huge trash mountain towers over the mall as viewed from I-35 on the west side of the mall.

ODOT (OK Dept of Transportation) very nearly took it on themselves to put Crossroads Mall out of its misery. The plan is to redesign of the I-240 and I-35 intersection to include new flyover lanes to alleviate backed up traffic and to open up room for adding lanes to the clogged commuter artery between Downtown and suburban Cleveland and McClain counties. One of the flyover lanes was designed to incidentally close off the Pole Road exit from I-240 (the main entrance to Crossroads Mall), but after a huge uproar from Crossroads Mall management claiming they're "trying" to reinvent its shopping center, the plans were reiterated and instead houses on the other side of I-35 were demolished to make room for the flyover lanes.

One way or another Crossroads Mall has maybe 5 more years. Macy's will soon close, meaning gone will be Penney's, Montgomery Ward, and Macy's--leaving just Dillard's. Dillard's won't stick it out much longer than that once major shopping mall projects further south of I-240 (in an area vastly under-served by retail, especially those that refuse to go to Crossroads Mall) start coming to completion. Crossroads Mall won't be missed, but it will be remembered as it sits empty for years while city leaders figure out what to do with it.

The site is prime for future redevelopment, believe it or not, because the site sits adjacent as well to a railroad line being targeted as a commuter rail line from Edmond north of OKC all the way down to the Norman/OU area. The site could become a great rail-oriented mixed-use development in the future similar to ones along the DART lines in Dallas, but in order for that to occur the mall structure, which is entirely unsuitable for something along those lines, would have to be razed.

From Deadmalls

[SoonerDave]

In hindsight the picture wasn't all as rosy as it seemed. The mall actually officially kick-started the worst of Oklahoma City's urban white flight, which led to downtown and the most central historic districts in town becoming poster children of blight and neglect. Retail that was scattered across the inner southside neighborhoods all either died away or flocked to Crossroads Mall, taking away economic activity and niehgborhood activity. The inner southside became the most blighted part of Oklahoma City with the advent of Crossroads Mall.

Laughably and ridiculously inaccurate analysis.

White flight to the suburbs started years earlier during the Judge Luther Bohanon (sp)-imposed busing that saw kids being transported cross-county in the name of school desegregation. That started the so-called "white flight" to the suburbs that saw school districts such as Moore and Edmond, to name only a few, to flourish.

The idea that people all moved out of downtown because of Crossroads is just plain silly. Urban develepers chased people out of downtown in a self-imposed erosion that made downtown streets all-but unnavigable, while urban renewal in the core of downtown's previous living spaces made the area anything but hospitable to long-term residents.

If there's any association with retail killing downtown, you could go back as far as Shepherd Mall or even the original Penn Square, both of which predated Crossroads by at least a decade.

Analysis is nice, but when it turns into hyperbole to rationalize some other argument, its a little peeving. My mom, and her mom before her, could attest to the slow decay of downtown OKC (where my mom grew up, BTW) long before Crossroads was even a line on a blueprint.

-soonerdave

[OKCTalker]

I think this overlooks several fundamental issues.

Second, Crossroads can't just force existing leaseholders to pack up and move to an arbitrary space in the mall. Each tenant has a lease, and presumably each space in the mall is leased at a specific rate based on how relatively attractive a given spot is within the mall in terms of traffic, visibility, etc.

Third, layaway isn't a magic profit center. In fact, its really just another form of credit. Retail operations make money by moving merchandise as quickly as possible with minimum expense, and that merchandise is moved by consumers spending money. Layaway implies the availability of space to hold unclaimed inventory, and that's square footage that's not displaying new merchandise to be sold, but does have to be suppied with electricity, heat, air, and all the other elements of overhead that go along with it.

-SoonerDave

Second point: Most retail leases today give the landlord the right to move tenants to "comparable" space. I am confident that the leases in a regional mall provide for that. However, is this something that has been done in other contracting malls as they contracted to their ultimate demise?

[southernskye]

The Future of Shopping Malls

[Bunty]

I think online retailers and their lower prices as in amazon.com easily present one of the biggest dangers to enclosed malls, especially now considering the downward economy.

If amazon thinks it's a good idea, it can increase its appeal to consumers by putting in enough additional warehouses, so it can offer most customers next day shipping at ground rates. Besides that, the depressed economy alone will probably add to the appeal of online retailers.

[Pete]

When all the enclosed malls in OKC were built (including QS) there weren't any of the big-box retailers that are so ubiquitous now.

Think about it... Best Buy, Sam's Club, Super Wal-Mart, Petco, PetSmart, Office Depot, Kohls, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Borders, Barnes & Noble, Babies r Us, Staples, Old Navy -- even Super Targets and dozens more all popped up in the last 20 years. The population hasn't grown nearly in the same proportion, so obviously these types of stores are feeding off the more traditional mall tenants.

That in addition to the on-line resources have completely altered the retail landscape.

If you think about how much the world has changed since malls started opening about 30-40 years ago, it's no wonder they are becoming more and more out of touch with what people want today.

I've said it many times but Quail Springs better be working on a plan to massively update and evolve otherwise they are going to see major problems in the very near future.

[jbrown84]

You are completely right about Quail Springs. Hopefully they don't become complacent like Crossroads did.

I don't think online retail will ever completely take over. Amazon is about the only site I ever order from because of their cheap prices. But there will always be things that people would rather see in person (clothes especially) and also people don't always want to wait for it to be shipped.

[scootinger]

I think that Quail Springs has already started to decline, and will probably go further downhill in the next few years. Look at the east and west ends of the mall...many of those types of stores you don't see a lot of at Penn Square or Sooner malls, but you DO see at Crossroads. They're also building the Warren theater at Rockwell & Memorial, which will probably take away a lot of business from the AMC. Also I think it's likely that in the next few years either JCPenney or Sears may either a) go out of business altogether (more likely for Sears) or b) move to a big box location (more likely for JCP). Then take into account the various upscale shopping centers that are being built or proposed around the Edmond and Quail Springs areas that could easily take a lot of business away from the mall. Finally, Quail could develop a bad reputation for crime if any major incidents (ie shootings) were to occur at the mall.

Given the area (or at least its current state) I foresee Quail Springs eventually being redeveloped/renovated into an office complex, much like Shepherd Mall. I don't know if that is quite as likely with Crossroads though.

[jbrown84]

If Penney's moves out or Sears closes, I think Quail, given the surrounding demographics, has a good possibility of landing a better dept. store in the long run. Von Maur, Saks, Nordstrom. It's possible. I think there is still room for a couple indoor malls in this city. You certainly don't see ALL the indoor malls in DFW in decline.