I think we all saw this coming... Another nail in the coffin for Crossroads.


****************

J.C. Penney to leave Crossroads Mall
By Trisha Evans
Staff Writer
Longtime-anchor J.C. Penney Co. Inc. will close its doors at Crossroads Mall this summer, leaving behind a 200,000 square-foot hole.


Mall manager Jim Swenson heard about the closing from the store's employees, but it wasn't really a surprise.

"Knowing that they were going to open these other two stores, the handwriting was on the wall,” Swenson said.

The July 21 closing of the Crossroads store is timed with the opening of two other metro area stores in early August — one at the new Shops at Moore and one in Town Central Plaza in Midwest City.

"We are relocating six miles toward Midwest City and six miles toward Moore,” J.C. Penney district manager Steve Steele said.

The move means J.C. Penney will break its 35-year lease with the mall, Swenson said.

The store has been a tenant at the mall since it opened in 1974.

Swenson declined to comment what it would cost the company to leave two years before the lease was up.

"We have not officially been told by J.C. Penney's that it is closing. We've just heard it through J.C. Penney's employees,” Swenson said.

"Until they give us official notification, we're just kind of hanging until then.”

But Swenson said the mall is working to fill the giant gap that will remain and has been talking to other potential mall anchors.

"We're sad to see J.C. Penney go. It's been a strong store not only for J.C. Penney's but also for Crossroads Mall,” he said.

However, Swenson said the closing is an opportunity for the mall to give its customers a new anchor.

Company spokesman Tim Lyons said the move is strategic.

"In terms of following customers and being in the growing part of the city, the off-mall stores give us more flexibility to do that. There aren't very many malls being built anymore,” Lyons said.

"The off-mall stores have been very successful. They do generate more sales-per-square foot than the mall stores.”

They also tend to be more assessable and frequented more often, compared with the mall store which is usually more of a weekend and holiday destination, Lyons said.

The newer stores are smaller and more efficient, Lyons said.

The Crossroads store is almost double the size of the two stores combined.

"In our older stores you had a much lower percentage of net sale to gross square footage because they were bigger,” Lyons said.

"Today the emphasis is on being leaner in terms of turning merchandise ... not having stock rooms full of stuff and boxes. The newer stores are more efficient.”

Employees will be offered jobs at the Moore and Midwest City locations, Steele said, and he expects more positions to be created by the relocation.

Shall we get a pool going to see who can guess which anchor will leave next and when?

My guess will be Macy's and the time I predict is sometime between back to school season and next spring.

Come to think of it, the city should recruit Macy's to move downtown. We could have a version of the NYC events right here in OKC.

On another note this makes me laugh...

What is Dollar General or Family Dollar renting mall space now? Too bad Burlington Coat Factory moved already. They would make a nice tenant especially with all the gangster clothes they carry these days.

Wait a minute I know who they are talking to.... OLD PARIS FLEA MARKET. They are about to need a home after they lose the place to Crooked Oak Schools. There is no other place in the district to build and OKC Public Schools is not about give up any land for Crooked Oak to build a school.

Heck, even The Dollar Tree would be too upscale for Crossroads, now. Actually, this is all so sad. I remember going to Crossroads the first weekend it opened. I was 14 and went with my grandparents. I was in awe. It was packed and everyone was so proud of the new mall. The only real "mall" before Crossroads had been Shephard Mall and the open-air Penn Square. Which, I also have fond memories of. I always say that if they built that open-air Penn Square today, we would all think that was so cool. Times change.

If they razed it tomorrow and built a lifestyle center they would come out better years down the road.

------------------

I'm sad to hear that this is confirmed! I keep holding out hope that Crossroads will somehow "revive" itself. I still stop by there from time to time for Macy's, Dillard's, JCP, VS, and Bath & Body Works, but that's about it. Oh, and Chik Fil A.

Chik Fil-A will probably bail before long. I used to work retail southside. The manager would come and give us free sandwhich coupons to get us to come down to the mall and eat.

It is only a matter of time before they open a southside Chik-Fil-A. It will probably go somewhere south of 240 (104th, 119th or 134th) or down on I-35 & 19th in Moore.

Man, I wish I had said something about this a while back. I didn't realize this was just now being reported. I think I first learned about Penneys leaving back in February but I thought the cat was already out of the bag.

You gotta love the way Macerich (Crossroads Management) dealt with the whole issue. As soon as Macerich realized JCP was gone, they sold the mall. I don't blame them. I wouldn't want to be a part of a sinking ship either. From what I understand the new owner takes the reigns June 1, and the good news is, they plan on spending some money to get things back in shape. Now, that's just hearsay so there's no telling what the mall will be like five years from now. However, I've talked with some of the mall employees (not tenant employees) and they said they were guaranteed a raise when the new ownership took place. So, I'm assuming the raise is indication the company is willing to spend a little more money. We'll see in a few years I guess.

__________________
...this shortest straw has been pulled for you

JC Penney announced a month or more ago the Crossroads location would close. Plus, since they are building as close to the mall, it should have been obvious when the new stores were announced. Todays announcement is a FORMAL announcement.

anderson, you might want to call up crossroads mall manager jim swenson and correct him of his factual error since you know more about the mall's business than he does. while many have seen the handwriting on the wall for the past few months, penney's still hasn't made an official announcement. -M

Chik-Fil-A is opening a stand-alone location at the new shopping center being built east of I-35 in Moore.


The link will provide the most up to date rendering of the shopping center plans.

http://www.mooreed.com/CollinsDevelo...rendering).pdf

Chik-Fil-A is going to be located at the SW corner of the shopping center.

__________________
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. --Master Yoda
Facts can change opinions, opinions cannot change facts.

Funny how the mall manager that was interviewed didn't seem to care much about JC Penney's leaving. All he did was talk about how well the outparcel stores are doing, in which he has no control of.

My ex-fiance was a merchandise manager at Crossroads in 98-99. That's why we moved to OKC, he was transferred here. He really enjoyed the people he worked with there. I haven't been to Crossroads mall since then.

When I was in college (78-82) I worked in Crossroads at Orbach's.

For those that don't remember, Orbach's was much like Harold's: upscale men's store. The other OKC location was 50 Penn Place.

Shows you how much that mall has changed. Wow.

The Crossroads store is DOUBLE the size of the two new ones COMBINED? Did I read that right? One fourth the size?

metro... it was tim lyons, company spokesman for jc penney that was discussing the success of outparcel stores. the article switches interviews midstream.

jbrown... i think the article is misspeaking here. it says that the crossroads location is 200,000 sqft and other documents show the new jc penney locations weigh in at around 100,000 sqft each. -M

The one they are buliding in Moore is definitely more lean and mean than the Crossroads location...Guessing it is more like the size of a Kohls just glancing at it going by

__________________
Dr. Spaceman: Now Jenna, medically speaking for your height your weight puts you what we call the "disgusting" range. Fortunately there are solutions. For example, crystal meth has been shown to be very effective. How important is tooth retention to you?

So only 1 floor?

Definitely only one floor....If you are driving on I-35 it is the farthest back of the two bldgs now up....Not huge by any means

__________________
Dr. Spaceman: Now Jenna, medically speaking for your height your weight puts you what we call the "disgusting" range. Fortunately there are solutions. For example, crystal meth has been shown to be very effective. How important is tooth retention to you?

I'll bet you dollars to donuts that Sears tries to grab that old Penny's space. That may not be much of a net gain for Crossroads, however, as I'm not sure Sears will exist (at least as we know it today) in five years.

From a purely selfish motive, I wish Chick-Fil-A weren't building *quite* so far into Moore. That doesn't improve the driving distance too much for me. A location farther west of Crossroads, right along I-240 (maybe a [i]little[i] south, say along that new 89th and Western development - hint, hint) would be most welcome...

I, too, lament the deterioration of Crossroads. I remember when it opened that it was an incredibly eye-popping place; Orange Julius were the treat of all treats, and to spend a buck or two at the original LeMans Speedway was just *the best*. I remember when Emmer Brothers spanned two floors on the south side of the west corridor, and the local MD telethon used to originate from the center court area.

Although Crossroads is, in part, a victim of the area of town surrounding it to the immediate north/northeast, its owners financial neglect surely hasn't helped. I hope the new owner's (apparent?) willingness to put some capital into the place at least gives some hope that some brighter future is ahead...

-soonerdave

Let me add my feelings of sadness that Crossroads seems to be in such dire straits. (Personally I have been to Macy's several times and it has been nearly devoid of customers.) However there is a note of inevitability to its decline and possible failure. When it opened it drew from smaller towns and rural areas to the south and southeast. Since then however both Norman and Shawnee have opened sizable malls of their own, thus choking off Crossroads' customer base to the south and southeast. And the area of Oklahoma City proper that surrounds Crossroads is not a lucrative customer base. Furthermore as Moore adds more and more commercial outlets, even that customer base is shrinking. So I hope Crossroads finds a way to survive, but I am not optimistic.

I have never liked Penneys, and I have never shopped there...

but...

I went into a free standing one in Austin, like the ones they are building here and it was VERY nice, more open space, better layouts... like a nice Kohls.

I will actually consider shopping there. I think it gives Penneys a new image, and that is what they need.

I think the first sign that Penny's was going to really change itself was with the store they built out at Penn Square. Even though it was still a two-story mall-style store, it was *much* smaller than the other Penny's I'd visited, and the general style sure seemed like a departure. I think these newer stores are an outgrowth of that smaller style, even down to single-story venues...

I can't help but think one morning Crossroads will just wake up and discover that "Steve and Barry's" just packed up and left overnight. Strange and unappealing little store, at least to me...

-soonerdew

In Crossroads Mall's future I see.... a business park similar to Shepherd Mall. It's the only way until urban renewal makes it's way to I-240 in say 20 years or so.

As long as Steve and Barry's stays in OKC somewhere, I'll be alright.

__________________
"Pear Pimples for Hairy Fishnuts!"

If I owned Crossroads I would look at redeveloping the mall into a mixed use of residential, shopping and office space. Then lobby the city and other investors to create something like this:

Stapleton - Feels Different

Developers in Denver converted the old Stapleton Airport into a mix use of retail, office space, schools and housing. The same thing could be done as an I-35 corridor project from downtown to Moore.

hmmmmm, jails and prisons are overcrowded in many places in state and in metro area, a big space is getting emptier and emptier, some say lots of law enforcement end up there regularly anyhow ... hmmm, Crossroads Correctional Center ... CCC aka The Cube ... (nah, couldn't happen ...)