Cross Church Eyes Expansion After Land Donation

A $3.15 million land purchase by two Springdale businessmen — one of them Tyson Foods Inc. president and CEO Donnie Smith — has opened the door for the state’s largest church to begin planning an additional campus on the Interstate 49 corridor.

Smith and Travis Ruff, co-founder of Milestone Construction Co., recently closed on the purchase of a nine-acre parcel at the southeast corner of Wedington Drive and Interstate 49 in Fayetteville. The purchase was made in the name of 49 & Wedington LLC, according to Washington County real estate records. 

As a stipulation of their purchase offer, Smith and Ruff asked the property owners to also donate an adjoining eight parcels, totaling 13 acres to Springdale-based Cross Church.

The deal, funded by Legacy National Bank of Springdale, was completed Nov. 26. James Family Properties LLLP, formerly known as Thomas F. James Realty LP of Little Rock, was the previous owner of the land.

Through a Tyson Foods spokesman, Smith declined to comment on the real estate deal. Ruff also did not wish to comment.

With the 13-acre property — which has been appraised at approximately $5 million — now in hand, Cross Church leaders plan to develop a new campus to address overcrowding issues at its current Fayetteville location on West Wedington Drive, where parking is a significant issue.

The congregation now meets in a 15,750-SF retail center, known as The Shoppes at Wedington, and hosts more than 2,000 people each Sunday across four services, according to the church.

“Cross Church now has in its possession 13 acres of prime real estate that did not cost us, nor will cost us, one dime,” Cross Church senior pastor Ronnie Floyd said. “It’s a miracle.”

Floyd, whose son Nick Floyd is the pastor at the Fayetteville campus, announced the development details Jan. 18 during a service from Fayetteville High School that was simulcast to the megachurch’s other locations.

Cross Church members worship at one of four locations throughout Northwest Arkansas, and another in southwest Missouri.

In 2001, First Baptist Church of Springdale became a multi-campus ministry with the beginning of The Church at Pinnacle Hills in Rogers, which moved into its current building just off Interstate 49 in 2006.

In 2010, the church changed its name to Cross Church and expanded to Fayetteville with the Wedington Drive location.

A fourth satellite location, formerly College Avenue Baptist Church, launched in April 2012, and is also in Fayetteville. Cross Church Neosho launched last April as the fifth site.

In addition to the 13 acres it now owns, the church has three options in the next three years for the nine acres belonging to Smith and Ruff, who, Floyd said, are Cross Church members, though neither attend the Fayetteville campus.

• Purchase the land for $3.2 million at any time.

• Enter into an agreement for a developer to buy the land and build a facility that would be leased to Cross Church as part of its new Fayetteville campus development.

• Do nothing with it, and develop the donated 13 acres as its Fayetteville campus.

Cross Church will also pay the interest on the Smith/Ruff property for the next three years.

“Regardless of which option we choose, we will begin putting together a master plan and will build a new Fayetteville campus as soon as possible,” Ronnie Floyd said.

Cross Church, which had a budget of $17.8 million in 2014, was ranked the 48th largest church in America last year by Outreach Magazine, with weekly worship attendance of 8,987. That’s up from a rank of No. 53 and worship attendance of 8,808 in 2013.

The church was organized in Springdale on Feb. 19, 1870, as the Liberty Church. 

Shiloh Christian School was founded in 1976 as a ministry of the church and is now the largest private school in Northwest Arkansas, with a fall 2014 enrollment of 1,030 students from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Floyd, a Texas native, was introduced as pastor in 1986. He was elected president last summer of the Southern Baptist Convention, the world’s largest Baptist denomination.