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LifeChurch.tv Purchases Dillards (Well, Kinda)
LifeChurch.tv has purchased a former Dillard's Department Store in the Oklahoma City area. The nearly 100,000-square-foot space — attached to the mall, not a freestanding building — was purchased for about 1.5 million dollars. LifeChurch.tv, which has about a dozen campuses in Oklahoma and several other states, has no immediate plans for the space but eventually will open a church branch, said Bobby Gruenewald, pastor-innovation leader. "We don't have a particular timeline or timeframe as to when we might start or when we might open,” he said, noting that news of the property acquisition will whet east-area members' desire for a meeting space.
More from NewsOK.com:
It’s not the church’s first former retail location. LifeChurch.tv’s south Oklahoma City campus is in leased former store space at 7800 S Walker Ave., an Oklahoma City campus is in leased space in a former Wal-Mart at 5821 Northwest Expressway, and a campus in Fort Worth, Texas, is in a former movie theater attached to a strip center, Gruenewald said.
The congregation, part of the Evangelical Covenant Church, constructed buildings for campuses at 2001 NW 178 and in Stillwater. The church also has campuses at 7015 E 41st Street in Tulsa and in Mesa, Ariz., Wellington, Fla., Albany, N.Y., and Hendersonville, Tenn. The main church is at 4600 E Second Street in Edmond.
When it comes to real estate, “we’ve done a little bit (of) everything” to start new campuses, Gruenewald said. “We look at the most effective use for our dollars. Buying and leasing property (is usually) more cost-effective than building.”
LifeChurch.tv will bring new life to Heritage Park Mall, but not the kind most mall owners are looking for, said Mark Inman, the broker with CB Richard Ellis-Oklahoma who represented the church in the transaction.
An open, functioning space beats a dark, abandoned space, he said, but it probably won’t mean a business boon for the rest of the mall, which has been struggling for years. Managers for the mall’s out-of-state owners could not immediately be reached.
The church will renovate and improve the space, however, which will help the overall appearance of the property, Inman said!
Go Lifechurch.tv!
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This post has been viewed 161 times and was added on December 06, 2007 by Todd Rhoades. Filed under: Engaging Culture Current Events and the Church Share this post with a friend right now! View reactions to this post at other blogs... You can really help us out by subscribing to our free RSS feed with your favorite feed reader, or here at Bloglines. Also, you can add us to your favorites at Technorati.
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I'm Todd Rhoades... the MMI guy. I'm also on the team at Leadership Network (although that doesn't mean that they endorse everything I write here). In my past life, I was the founder and developer of a website named ChurchStaffing.com.
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