New supermarket planned for south Tulsa

TULSA — A new supermarket brand for Tulsa is planned for a $21.5 million redevelopment of the Crossing Oaks Shopping Center in south Tulsa, documents show.

WinCo Foods, a 24-hour store whose corporate headquarters are in Boise, Idaho, last week signed a lease with the center’s owner, Crossing Oaks Investment LLC, for a sevenacre parcel at 7136 S Memorial Drive, Tulsa County Clerk records indicate.

Crossing Oaks, an Oklahoma limited liability company whose address is in Charlotte, N.C., last week secured a $21.5 million loan to underwrite the shopping center’s redevelopment, which includes WinCo’s roughly 87,000-squarefoot store, documents show. Sunshine Furniture and Ross Dress for Less are among the biggest retailers in the center.

“This is going to be great not just for us residents in that area — I live very close to that — but improvements will boost all four corners there,” said Tulsa City Councilor Anna America, whose District 7 abuts the redevelopment. “We have these aging retail areas.”

Neither representatives from Crossing Oaks, doing business as the Charlotte-based real estate firm Collett, nor WinCo immediately responded to email and telephone requests for comment. High Gravity is a shopping center occupant that sells supplies for home beer brewing and winemaking. Coowner Desiree Knott said she is unaware of detailed plans for the center, only that she has to move.

“It’s been a huge frustration,” said Knott, adding that High Gravity is moving in a couple of months to a nearby location. “We finally got them to tell us we were going to have to leave.”

WinCo Foods has stores in Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington. A WinCo store in Moore, the first in Oklahoma, is scheduled to open in the spring, a city spokesman there said.

Founded in 1967, WinCo has more than 100 locations and at least 15,000 employees companywide.

WinCo, whose customers bag their own groceries, prides itself on low prices, wide selection and friendly service. The company operates on a Employee Stock Ownership Plan, meaning employees are part owners of the company.

According to a story by Forbes, the company was purchased for $10 million from its former owner, Waremart, in 1985. By 2014, it had workers holding shares valued at close to $3 billion, the publication stated.