Crossroads Shopping Center has new owners and new owners and reconstruction plans supported by Hobby Lobby
The nonprofits associated with the Santa Fe South School are pursuing the reconstruction of the ambitious Crossroads Mall with the goal of turning it into a mix of education, retail, clinics and housing, and a group of donors led by Hobby Lobby support.
On January 30, CrossRoads Renewal Project purchased the mall on Interstate 240 and Interstate 35 for $9.2 million, a Christian nonprofit with a board of directors by Santa Fe South School principal Chris ·Chris Brewster hosted.
Santa Fe South School enrolls around 2,300 students in two former anchor stores in the mall. The purchase includes the remaining two anchor store spaces, a two-level retail hall and 62 acres of ground-based parking spaces around the mall.
Imagine a public courtyard area developed by the Crossroads Mall to reflect the growing number of students enrolled in the Santa Fe South School in the first two anchor stores.
Brewster said the purchase negotiations lasted for several months due to the mechanism lien left by unpaid contractors on the property. When the deal collapsed, their former ownership lawsuit filed, being lured into small businesses that opened shops in malls. The purchase contract has added more than 20 amendments.
“Although we’ve crossed a series of finishing lines in this long-awaited acquisition, for us, we’ve really crossed the starting line,” Brewster said. “Now, we can adopt this vision to change the space. We can’t wait to know who joined us and how their gifts will bless the thousands of children in our community.”
What are the current plans to rebuild Crossroads shopping malls?
The Crossroads Renewal project already has a 100,000-square-foot commitment in a 1.2 million-square-foot shopping center, which includes healthcare and educational support services, government agencies, nonprofits and local businesses.
The wish includes bringing shopping malls to non-level health clinics, including mental health services, open to patients regardless of insurance and payment capacity. The clinic was inspired by a similar program at Henderson Hill Baptist Church in Edmund.
More: Crossroads Mall (mostly empty now) is a safe haven for OKC teenagers and families in their heyday
After a recent purchase of Crossroads shopping mall, a Christian nonprofit is looking to transform the wings between the front anchor stores into a hybrid of clinics, services, retail, restaurants and housing.
This development is based on the expectation that shopping malls and surrounding properties will have more than 10,000 residents per day, based solely on the growth of schools.
Santa Fenan School is a 10-site charter school district that will add 750 students to Crossroads once the former Dillard space is renovated.
Meanwhile, Dove Science Academy is looking to expand its Crossroads Mall campus to the standalone AMC Theater.
The plans to showcase the city will open a 1,000-student school, 240 E 240 E Service Road, at the former theater, about 1,600 feet east of Dove Science Academy-South Elementary School.
January at the AMC Crossing 16 Theater in Oklahoma City.
Plans submitted to the Oklahoma City Planning Department show that the theater will be converted into 29 classrooms, a 5,012-square-foot gymnasium, a 366-seat auditorium, two Cafeterias, a physics lab, and two libraries, Stem Lab, two science labs, two science labs, two art labs and two biology labs.
Brewster hopes that these numbers will support the reconstruction of the mall. Meanwhile, developers consulted in the planning said up to 362 housing units could be built over the surrounding area.
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Brewster said the nonprofit has set a 36-month deadline to develop a viable plan to redevelop the shopping mall level and adopt a backup plan to remove lobby levels and keep anchoring the store.
South South School began in the mall in 2017 when charter school development bought the former Montgomery Ward anchor for $1.8 million. Another $10 million is spent on renovations.
At the time, the school was expected to provide the required abortion to support a fledgling effort to turn the shopping mall into a Hispanic business center.
Six months later, the shopping mall was closed. Santa Fe South continues to see rapid enrollment growth, which bought the second anchor store originally as the John A. Brown Department store.
Crossroads Plaza LLC, Utah-based Linn, purchased the rest of the mall for $6.5 million in May 2021 and plans to open an Asian market. The market never came true, Brewster learned that despite the assurance, the mall owner would have been ready to open up marijuana in the former Dillard’s anchor space.
“We worked diligently with lawmakers to close the loopholes that allow (cannabis growth) to students close up,” Brewster said. Like the troubles of schools, he tried to turn a portion of the shopping mall into cannabis-related Event meeting space.
The semi-finished China’s “Arch of Friendship” is the only visible evidence that the improvements tried in the Crossroads shopping malls were proven.
“The interesting thing is that the only building they did was a semi-complete arch of Asian Friendship,” Brewster said.
“The bad nature of the business next to us has not disappeared,” Brewster said. “The decline in physical space is accelerating to the city’s fire marshal closing down Dillard’s buildings, ending electricity.”
The dream of revitalizing the intersection shopping mall becomes a feasibility study, then supports
Brewster has always dreamed of bringing the mall to life. The Charter School Growth Foundation then inspires Brewster to realize this dream by funding feasibility studies.
Brewster met with developers who had experience in complex multi-function development, including Gary Brooks, who led the renovation of the First National Center, and Blair Humphreys is Former downtown Airpark established Wheeler, as well as Hank and Susan Binkowski, who developed several retail centers.
Further talks included church gatherings throughout the city, especially in southern Oklahoma City, and gatherings with students’ parents.
The Inasmuch Foundation, Butterfield Foundation and Hobby Lobby, which employs 7,000 people in southern Oklahoma.
Tyler Green said the timing was right for the company owned by his family, which is looking for opportunities to contribute even more to its hometown.
Entertainer Ed McMahon talked to audiences at the Crossroads Mall in 1993, which included about 300 hopeful people auditioning for the “Great American’American’ Star Search “Talent Hunting” by Ed McMahon.
“I grew up and went to that mall,” Green said. “I think this is my first time meeting with Chick-Fil-A in Oklahoma City. There is a pet store in this mall, and any other shopping There are no pet stores in the center. That’s what I remember when I was a kid. And there are more memories of what happened there.”
Brewster said business may return to the intersection mall, but the focus will be on local businesses. Shopping malls will tend to “not your regular Joe” rather than Starbucks, a nonprofit that employs people with special needs. Restaurant operators are also in talks.
Brewster is also looking forward to the future existence of the church in the mall, which Greene says is part of the mall’s new owner’s focus.
“It used to be a place of consumption, a place of economic exchange,” Green said. “But I want it to be called a place of community, people go to gather, and it’s also a place of care.”
This post originally appeared in Oklahoma: New Crossroads Mall owners have huge plans, hobby lobby support
