The end in sight for Crossroads Mall?
Journal Record
July 2nd, 2008 · No Comments

The nail in the coffin for Crossroads Mall in Oklahoma City may soon be hammered. The city’s largest mall has fallen on hard times having lost two of its anchor tenants in the past year with J.C. Penney and Macys. As a result, the mall is continuing to see smaller inline tenants vacate with the decline in mall traffic. Now it appears Steve & Barry’s could be vacating one of the mall’s two remaining anchor spaces with the news released yesterday that the apparel retailer may be facing bankruptcy and is currently negotiating with its lenders. You can read all the gory details on America Online’s Money & Finance website.

Some retail experts are confident that Steve & Barry’s will at least close a significant number of its 200 stores, while others feel that the retailer may end up folding altogether. Either way, the future for Steve & Barry’s at Crossroads Mall looks bleak.

If the mall should lose Steve & Barry’s, it would leave Dillards as the only anchor left at Crossroads, and a one anchor regional mall just cannot survive. In fact, many retail experts believe it is only a matter of time before Dillards leaves Crossroads. The mall’s ownership is trying to do things to breathe life back into Crossroads such as their new Family Nights on Fridays and Saturdays, but unfortunately they are battling against two stout forces. The first being the decline in the retail market thanks to the downturn in the national economy, and second, the fact that most mall-type retailers in the Southwest quadrant of Oklahoma City are choosing to lease space in the newly-built power centers along Interstate 240 and in Moore. By taking all of these factors into consideration, you can see why losing Steve & Barry’s could very well be the nail in the coffin for the mall.

In other Crossroads Mall related news, longtime commercial realtor Gerald Gamble has placed a listing on Loopnet to sell the former Macy’s space at the mall. It appears that there is little hope of leasing the space and the desire now is that a second generation retail space user will acquire the building much the way Edmond-based LifeChurch.tv did in buying the former Dillards building at Heritage Park Mall to use as their forthcoming Midwest City campus location.

The end in sight for Crossroads Mall?