As KJRH reported this summer, Brandi Wheeler said, "Everything moves kind of slow." If you've lived in Bixby for more than a season, you already know exactly what she means. Wheeler owns Sunny Rae Room, a downtown event space near the Arkansas River that runs drag brunches and bourbon tastings, and she was talking about the 150-acre shopping center that's supposed to be rising south of the river at 151st and Memorial. Plans for it have been public for about a year now. Still no dirt moving.
If you've been anywhere near a Bixby group chat or a city council agenda in the last year, you've heard the pieces: a Reasor's is coming, Culver's picked Bixby for its first Oklahoma location, and there's a Walmart or two somewhere in the mix. All of that is true. What's less understood is why none of it has broken ground yet, and what that gap tells you about how the two halves of this town are actually growing right now.
What's Actually Confirmed at Spartan Creek
The tenant list for Spartan Creek has firmed up considerably since the earliest site plans circulated. Bixby Development, a local outlet that tracks the city's growth, reported last August that Reasor's will anchor the project with a store of roughly 60,000 square feet. This summer, a KJRH report added several more confirmed names to the roster:
| Category | Confirmed tenant |
|---|---|
| Grocery anchor | Reasor's, roughly 60,000 square feet |
| Fast food and fast casual | Taco Bell, Chipotle, Culver's (Oklahoma's first location) |
| Coffee | Starbucks, Dutch Bros |
| Retail | Burlington, Ross, Five Below |
That's a real, specific list, not a vague "national brands coming soon" line. The project sits on 150 acres just west of 151st and Memorial. Terrye Hayes, who moved into a house across the street from the site at the start of this year, told a local news crew she's looking forward to it, joking that she'll have a pond to watch out front while the retail fills in around her.
The tenant roster locking in matters. Retailers don't sign onto a project unless they believe the traffic counts and the rooftops support them, and Bixby clearly has both. What retailers can't fix is a permitting calendar.
Why the Dirt Hasn't Moved
Here's the part that's easy to miss if you're only half paying attention to city news: this project has already missed its own internal timeline. A rezoning application for the Spartan Creek site was expected to clear the Bixby Planning Commission and City Council by the end of 2025, with construction anticipated to start shortly after. That window has already closed. As of this summer, KJRH found no crews and no construction vehicles on site, and the grocery store's own completion target, the first quarter of 2027, is now less than eight months out.
The city's official explanation, when reporters pressed for one, was direct about the status without giving a date:
According to KJRH, the city described Spartan Creek as a "high-priority project" still working through "multiple levels of review" covering utility infrastructure, streets, and commercial development, with state and local approvals already in hand but no groundbreaking scheduled.
That's not a financing problem or a retailer problem. It's an infrastructure review that hasn't cleared yet. For comparison, a nearly identical Reasor's-anchored project one suburb over, Aspen Ridge in Broken Arrow, opened its grocery store in August 2024 using tax increment financing to fund the public infrastructure up front. Same retail category, same regional playbook, and it moved from plans to an open store faster than Bixby's version has moved from plans to a groundbreaking.
Bixby City Manager Joey Wiedel has framed the slow pace as worth the wait, telling reporters the city has "shopped in other areas" for decades and hasn't had the chance to shop closer to home. In an April report, he estimated that Spartan Creek combined with two proposed Walmart locations, one at 131st and Memorial and another at 151st near Kimberly Clark Road, could bring 800 to 1,000 new jobs to the city. One of those Walmarts is being pitched as a next-generation format with more automation and a standalone fuel and convenience storefront out front. Those are real numbers attached to a real pitch. They're also, so far, numbers attached to sites that haven't been graded yet.
A Mile and a Half Away, Downtown Isn't Waiting
While the 151st corridor sits in review, downtown Bixby isn't standing still. The city and local developer Josh McFarland announced a separate $20 million project called Spartan Square in 2023, planned for Cabaniss Avenue and Highway 151, with an 80-room Tru by Hilton, a small convention center, retail space, and roughly 200 parking spots on the drawing board. McFarland pitched it at the time as an "injection" for small businesses that had been waiting on downtown to happen, some of which have been open for more than thirty years.
Whatever stage that project is in today, the businesses around it aren't waiting on it before running their own calendars. Wheeler's Sunny Rae Room has an adult prom booked for August 15, on top of a running series of drag brunches and bourbon tastings. Her point to reporters wasn't complaint so much as observation: any new business south of the river eventually means more people coming downtown for dinner first and a drink after. She's betting on that eventually happening. She isn't betting on a date.
Two Speeds, One ZIP Code
This is the piece that gets lost when Spartan Creek comes up at a backyard barbecue. Bixby isn't growing at one pace. It's growing at two, for two different reasons. Downtown's growth is smaller in square footage but built around businesses that are open and running today, regardless of what happens next door. The 151st corridor's growth is larger in scale, backed by a longer and more specific tenant list, and stuck behind a review process nobody outside city hall can put a date on.
If you live in one of the newer neighborhoods near 151st, the shopping center you were promised is still empty land, and the honest answer to "when" is that even the city won't commit to one. If you're downtown, the small business scene you already know keeps adding to itself without needing Spartan Creek to open first.
Neither timeline is wrong. They're just not running on the same clock. The next real signal to watch for isn't another tenant announcement. Bixby has plenty of those locked in already. It's the rezoning application actually clearing the Planning Commission, grading equipment showing up on site, or the new traffic signal the project calls for finally going in at 151st and Memorial. The city posts project updates on its own public projects page, and that's a better source than the next rumor that makes it to a group chat.
Bixby is happening. It's just happening at two different speeds, and knowing which corridor you're standing in tells you a lot more about what to expect this year than any tenant list does.
If you're curious how either side of Bixby's growth might affect what your home is worth, or you're weighing a move to a street closer to one of these corridors than the other, Linda Smalley knows this market block by block. Let's Connect.
