"Panda Express, Chick-fil-A, and even a 24-hour Whataburger are fine," The Oklahoman's Richard Mize wrote in August, "but the Edmond City Council flushed plans for a Club Car Wash at Covell Crossing, a retail center at Covell and Sooner roads."
That sentence sums up the year at this intersection better than any opening-day photo. Covell and Sooner is filling in, and the Council is now choosing what goes in. Restaurants with a defined site plan get approved. A car wash and a 148-acre mixed-use plan a mile north did not. And the roads carrying all of this, including a Sooner Road bridge built in 1925, have not caught up.
Four corners, four different stages
Each corner of the intersection is at a different stage, and that is the clearest way to read it today, October 7, 2026.
| Corner | What's there | Status as of Oct. 7, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Northwest | Crest Fresh Market, 2933 N. Sooner Rd. | Open since October 2023 |
| Southwest | Covell Crossing: Whataburger, Chick-fil-A | Whataburger open; Chick-fil-A opens Oct. 8 |
| Southeast | The Shoppes at Covell, about 24.2 acres | Zoning approved Feb. 23, 2026; no tenants announced |
| A mile north, at Coffee Creek | West Fork, about 148 acres | Rezoning failed at Council, June 8, 2026 |
The grocery came first. Crest's 105,000-square-foot store northwest of the intersection opened in October 2023, and Crest's store page lists the East Edmond location at 2933 North Sooner Road with 24/7 hours. That page dates to 2025, so the hours are worth confirming before a late-night run. For almost three years, though, this one store was the main reason to stop at the corner instead of driving through it.
The southwest corner got its yes
Covell Crossing is the commercial planned unit development, or PUD, on the southwest corner. City planning records list Vibe Restaurants as the applicant for its Whataburger. That Whataburger, at 4132 E. Covell Road, held its grand opening on Aug. 22, with operating partner Benton Whipple greeting the first customers, according to the Journal Record.
Next door, the Chick-fil-A Covell & Sooner at 4200 E. Covell Road is set to open tomorrow, Thursday, Oct. 8, at 6 a.m. The company's opening announcement names local Owner-Operator Greg Harjo and lists Monday through Saturday hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Panda Express has been talked about as the third restaurant on the corner for over a year. An October report traced it to an April 2025 City planning report describing a proposed 2,784-square-foot restaurant in Covell Crossing. So far there is no published construction start or opening date. For now it's a planned restaurant, with no date to put on the calendar.
The fourth use proposed for Covell Crossing was a Club Car Wash. The Planning Commission voted 1-4 against it on May 19, Edmond Inbox reported, and the City Council later rejected it as well. The same body that waved through three restaurant concepts turned down the car wash, inside the same commercial center.
The southeast corner has zoning and nothing else yet
Across Sooner Road, the Shoppes at Covell is a separate development of about 24.2 acres. The City Council approved its rezoning on Feb. 23, 2026. On Aug. 10, the Council took up a correction to that ordinance, which its agenda calls "previously approved." The fix covered a scrivener's error. It was not a site-plan hearing.
The PUD allows a wide range of uses. Its documents list grocery, medical, restaurants and retail, with residential possible. The January Planning staff memo goes further and gives examples of what the zoning could hold:
- Multifamily housing
- A hotel
- Restaurants and retail
- Office space
- A convenience store with fuel
- Automotive repair
None of these has been announced. City records reviewed through early October show no tenant and no follow-up site plan. Until a site plan reaches the Planning Commission, the southeast corner's future is a list of permitted uses with no signed tenants.
A mile north, the Council asked for details first
To see what the Council looks for, the best evidence is the proposal that failed. West Fork was a PUD covering about 148 acres at the southeast corner of Coffee Creek and Sooner. Its Tract I, about 45 acres, would have mixed commercial and residential uses, with at least 35% of the buildable area set aside for commercial and up to 560 dwelling units. Tract II, about 61 acres, would have allowed up to 320 detached homes on private internal streets. Together, the plan could have allowed up to 880 dwelling units.
The Planning Commission recommended approval 4-1 in May. On June 8, the Council's motion to approve failed 1-4.
Edmond Inbox's account of that meeting explains why in one line: "The issue was predictability." Council members asked what the commercial share would actually include and whether they were being asked to approve too much flexibility before seeing specifics. Mayor Mark Nash urged thinking past current road conditions to how Coffee Creek could change as Edmond grows north. Others raised drainage, floodplain and tree cover, since the packet described the site as mostly forested and partly in the Coffee Creek and FEMA floodplains.
Put that next to Covell Crossing and the pattern holds. A drive-thru restaurant comes with a building, a site plan and a known traffic pattern. West Fork came to the Council with percentages and height limits, and the Council wanted more detail before rezoning the land.
The roads are still behind the buildings
The restaurants are opening on two-lane roads. The City's Capital Improvement planning board went through the east-side road list on Sept. 15, 2026, and several of its items sit near this intersection.
Start with the bridge. The Sooner Road bridge between Coffee Creek and Covell, the stretch north of the new restaurants, was built in 1925 and is rated structurally deficient. It remains open and is inspected every six months. Replacement is estimated at about $2.2 million and could be done within six months to a year if it moves up the list, but no start date has been set. A new bridge would be built for the future full width of Sooner Road. That same discussion touched on developer participation in infrastructure costs as the area keeps growing.
The larger projects are further away:
- Covell and Air Depot, one mile east. The City's July project update described interim work widening Covell east of the intersection and Air Depot south of it to three lanes per leg, with span-wire signals, and expected it done before school started in August. The permanent version is about 60% designed but on hold.
- Bryant and Covell, to the west. An estimated $28.9 million for added approach lanes and a permanent signal, with no construction date.
- The Covell corridor, Santa Fe to Coltrane. A concept of about $100 million for continuous four-lane capacity and major intersection upgrades. It is long-range planning, not a funded schedule.
The City materials reviewed list no signal, roundabout or widening project at Covell and Sooner itself. Staff estimated about $15 million a year may be available for the whole road plan, so those projects compete with each other for the same money, year after year.
What changes this week, and what doesn't
From tomorrow morning, the southwest corner has two drive-thrus running side by side, one of them open around the clock. That is new traffic feeding onto the same Covell and Sooner lanes that carried Crest's shoppers last month. The southeast corner stays zoned but quiet until a site plan comes forward. The Coffee Creek land a mile north is still zoned General Agriculture, the zoning West Fork would have replaced. The 1925 bridge is still carrying Sooner Road traffic between them, with an inspection every six months.
The next real change will show up on a Planning Commission agenda: a Panda Express permit, a Shoppes at Covell site plan, or a revised proposal for the Coffee Creek corner. Each one has to clear the same Council that asked West Fork for more detail.
Every new approval at Covell and Sooner changes what east Edmond homes are compared against, from grocery runs to drive times. If you own nearby and want to know how this corner affects your home's value, LISTORSHOW can prepare a free home valuation based on what has actually been approved and built.
