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Dick’s Sporting Goods closes Midwest City store

Dick’s Sporting Goods closed its Midwest City store on Dec. 31. Photo by Jeff Harrison

By Jeff Harrison
Midwest City Beacon

Midwest City’s Town Center Plaza will begin the new year with one less business.

Dick’s Sporting Goods last week closed its store at 7095 SE 29th St. The last day of business was Dec. 31.

The sporting goods retailer closed the store due to a dispute over the building lease, according to employees. The lease runs through the end of the month.

Sooner Town Center, LLC owns the 50,000-square-foot building and leases it to Dick’s Sporting Goods. The Midwest City Economic Development Authority owns the land underneath most of Town Center Plaza but does not own the buildings. Sooner Town Center pays the EDA for the ground lease.

Some citizens voiced frustration claiming the City wasn’t doing more to save the Pennsylvania-based retailer, but Economic Development Director Robert Coleman explained the EDA has a limited role in negotiations.

“Sooner Town Center II, LLC, owns the building so we have little to do with lease negotiations. In fact, the Economic Development Authority is prohibited from directly contacting tenants concerning such matters,” Coleman said. “It is our understanding this Tenant sought rent concessions that would have made debt service impossible.”

Coleman believes Dick’s decision to phase out its hunting equipment likely affected its cash flow. The company stopped selling “assault style” rifles in 2018 in wake of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 dead. The company later phased out its firearms and hunting equipment entirely.

Coleman said the EDA is working with officials from STC II and Sooner Investment to fill the space but that nothing was certain. He believed the space could be reconfigured into small spaces for multiple tenants.

Town Center will receive a boost in the coming months with the opening of the new W.P. Atkinson Park in addition to the anticipated spring 2023 opening of the Mathis Home, Ashley Furniture and Lay-Z-Boy stores, which could make attracting a new tenant much easier.

Dick’s opened in the spring of 2013 as part of the second phase of the Sooner Town Center development.

6 Comments

  1. Buddy Summers on January 7, 2023 at 3:52 pm

    Go WOKE Go Broke ! ! ! Stupid move doing away with firearms and all hunting equipment in a state like Oklahoma .

  2. Rick on January 7, 2023 at 5:14 pm

    Put a Trader Joe’s there!

  3. Mike on January 8, 2023 at 9:50 am

    Stop letting developers build new buildings and letting the older areas go to trash raising rent to pay for the new building

  4. Rhonda jeck on January 8, 2023 at 11:47 am

    Dick sporting goods is a great store to shop for all kinds sports items.why would you shut there doors after all these years of great business.they are a popular store to shop for guns and other sports items.

  5. OAJones on January 15, 2023 at 11:47 am

    They lost my business, and the of anybody else that I could influence to not shop there; when they made a conscious decision to not support the 2A folks. They have lots of other places to move their establishment where it is more in line with their values. Bye Felicia!!!

  6. Mike Read on January 28, 2023 at 6:25 pm

    Just read that they are completely changing their business model from retail sales to indoor sports activities: skating rinks, climbing walls, batting cages, golf lessons etc…sounds like a sports themed Dave and Buster’s, with zero mention of retail. Our store south of Houston is closing now to remodel for this change. I think they lost so much profitable business by making the knee jerk decision to shut down their lucrative firearms sales that they were no longer viable. They will certainly not be any reason I’ll ever go in again. Thank goodness we have Academy, and they continue to expand geographically!

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