It's not just the shopping
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By ERIN ANDERSEN / Lincoln Journal Star
It’s 7 a.m. — two hours before the stores open — and John Leonhardt is already at SouthPointe Pavilions.
“I’m not a shopper by any stretch of the imagination,” he explained.
But he is a regular at SouthPointe’s Panera Bread.
Sunday through Friday, newspaper in hand, Leonhardt drives from his east Lincoln home to SouthPointe.
Panera staff know to expect him at 7 when he doesn’t work out,about 8:30 on days he does. Before he even sidles up to the counter, they have blueberry bagel coffee ready.
Across the room, smack dab in at the center table sit Dave and Jan Swartz with friends Charles and Gail Nelson. They’re also three or four-mornings-a week regulars. Just coffee, except on Sunday when they get bagels too.
Before Panera opened, they drove all the way from their Southern Hills home just south of Old Cheney Road and 27th Street to the O Street Barnes & Noble Book Sellers.
They like SouthPointe — and the changes it has brought to what was once Lincoln’s southern limits.
“It wasn’t even considered the edge of town. There were fields in between the town and us,” said Julie Lattimer, marketing director for the mall.
Dave Swartz remembers when he and his wife bought property in Southern Hills.
“Old Cheney was gravel,” he said. “We couldn’t even find our lot after we bought it.”
Added his wife, “27th Street was not even paved.”
Ahh yes, some people thought RED Development was nuts when it announced plans to build an outdoor mall at 27th Street and Pine Lake Road in the early 1990s.
No one would shop there, they said, it was too far away.
Cheryl Chilen of Fairbury lived in Lincoln in the 1960s, when Gateway was practically the eastern edge of town.
Standing in the center of SouthPointe, she marvels at the changes.
Lattimer is amazed as well.
She grew up on Claire Lane, just north of Nebraska 2 and west of 56th Street. One block behind her was farmland.
When Old Navy, SouthPointe’s first store opened on a rainy October day in 1998, it was literally in the middle of a cornfield, Lattimer said.
“People had to walk in on wooden planks,” she said.
Von Maur and Banana Republic soon followed.
“And this was before Lincoln hit the 200,000 (population) mark,” Lattimer said. “It was an act of faith — a testimony to where the vision of Lincoln was going — to have stores of that scope.”
American Eagle Outfitters, The Gap, Yankee Candle, Barnes & Noble, Scheels, Michaels and a six- screen theater followed.
Today, SouthPointe Pavilions is fully leased, home to 40 stores, 12 restaurants, two ice cream shops, one candy store and one Jazzercise center.
“We have filled our footprint,” Lattimer said.
Across the street on all three corners, more restaurants, strip malls, specialty stores, banks, groceries and a ShopKo have sprouted, surrounded by upscale homes and apartments.
“Who would have ever thought when we first started that it would get to that point?” Lattimer asked.
Last year, more than 4.3 million vehicles pulled into SouthPointe. So far this year, the number is up 7 percent, with 18,000 more vehicles this Thanksgiving weekend than last, Lattimer said.
SouthPointe draws customers and employees from outside Lincoln, too.
“To Beatrice folks it’s just like going next door,” Lattimer said. “To a lot of folks from York and Nebraska City it’s not that different than going to the grocery store. And Maryville, Kansas, is one of our best markets.”
On a recent balmy afternoon, Faye Jones of Belleville, Kan., made her first visit to SouthPointe in search of Old Navy.
“It’s really pretty,” she said. “It’s nice.
“My only question is what is it like out here when it’s cold?”
Not too bad, said Lattimer.
Naysayers still predict Nebraska’s blizzards, ice storms, tornadoes, hail and sauna-like humidity will ultimately hurt the complex.
“Honestly, I don’t think Nebraskans give themselves credit for how much they discount the weather,” Lattimer said.
Give SouthPointe staff a few hours on a blizzarding day to shovel, sand and sweep, and shopping is smooth.
“January is one of our best months,” Lattimer said. “The only time we are really impacted is on days when school is closed. Yet, Scheels staff say some of their best days are when school is closed. People look at it as an adventure.”
Maria Owen-Miller, who moved to Lincoln from Lubbock, Texas, this fall and works at American Eagle Outfitters, tends to agree.
“People are a lot nicer here,” she said. “Maybe it’s because of the fact that it is outside and not so enclosed ...”
Maybe it’s because people see SouthPointe as more than a place to shop. In the trade it’s called a lifestyle center, a destination, an experience, with art shows, concerts and weekend entertainment.
Dave Swartz and John Leonhardt see it as a social outlet.
“I live alone,” Leonhardt said. “This gets me out of the house. It’s nice to be out among human beings.”
It’s 11 p.m. Most stores closed two hours ago, but at Barnes & Noble people sip steaming mochas, pore over new releases and eye Cheesecake Factory goodies in the glass case before workers gently shoo them to their cars so they can lock up and go home.
Behind the bookstore, bakers at Panera have already preheated the ovens and kneaded the dough for tomorrow’s customers, who will be there when the doors open at 6:30 a.m.
Reach Erin Andersen at 473-7217 or eandersen@journalstar.com.
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