Murray Zetterholm, owner of Crossroads, an original tenant at Waters Place shopping center.

Crossroads, the Christian bookstore located at 2755 Oak Valley Dr. at the north end of the Target-anchored shopping complex, is closing its doors on Saturday.

It will continue as an online store that will carry top selling items including bibles, books and church supplies such as offerings envelopes and First Communion supplies.

“We’re not going away, we’re going virtual,” says owner Murray Zetterholm, who estimates that 90 percent of Christian bookstores in Metro Detroit have closed for a number of reasons.

“People can buy things on the internet much more easily now.You’ll find in general that church attendance is down, and people just don‘t have the kind of money they had 10 years ago.

“The bottom line is there are more places for people to buy our best-selling items, including Amazon, Walmart and even some of the secular bookstores,” he says.

A national study from Christian Retail Industry Research in 2008 indicated that the Christian book market was worth $720 million in 2007, a figure that doesn't include Bibles. But book sales were falling before that, the report confirms, particularly among independents.

Zetterholm will continue to imprint names in Bibles for custom orders, which is something he says people can’t get done even online.

Business dropped significantly for Crossroads following the Sept. 11 tragedy in New York, and it has slowly shrunk ever since, says Zetterholm. He gradually started cutting back on inventory and staff seven years ago, and eventually let all of his employees go last May in the hopes of being able to at least support himself. That has not happened.

Laura Blodgett | For AnnArbor.com

A Web developer by trade, Zetterholm has been doing side work creating and maintaining websites and currently has about 10 active projects.

“That was the final straw for the store,” says Zetterholm. “All of sudden that side work heated up and I needed more time to do it.”

As a Web developer, Zetterholm was able to create the Crossroads Website himself. The phone number will remain the same, just switched to a cell phone. He will not maintain any inventory but will instead drop ship from his suppliers.

“It has enough of a chance to work to make it worthwhile to try,” says Zetterholm. “There is a collection of people who still want to shop locally, even if it is in a virtual way. 

"The question will come down to how many people that is.”

Crossroads has maintained a storefront in that location for 22 years, and was the last Christian bookstore in Ann Arbor. The next closest one is Family Christian Bookstore in Canton, a national chain that also has locations in Novi and Taylor.

“They were nice guys and one of the original tenants when the center opened, which you don’t see much in the shopping center retail business,” says Tom Goldberg, one of managing partners of Oak Valley Management Company, of Zetterholm and co-owner Larry Ladd, who died a few years ago.

“Over the years, if you watch what we’ve all been watching in Ann Arbor in terms of book distributors like Borders and the internet, it is kind of a microcosm in how books are bought, sold and distributed,” he says on Crossroads closing.

Though Chuck E. Cheese is a longstanding tenant and does well along with other businesses like Arbor Fit, Goldberg says the management company is addressing the vacancies at that end of the mall. Among other changes: MC Sports moved to Briarwood Mall. 

Luckily, the economy seems to be moving in their favor.

“There definitely has been an uptick in market activity and some opportunities that were not expected a few months ago have come around," Goldberg said. "We have had discussions with significant retailers for some of those vacant spaces that we are very excited about.”

Crossroads will be open Saturday during ts regular hours of 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Nativity figures, including the Fontanini nativity line, and gift items are 75 percent off and everything else is 50 percent off. In addition, retail display items including shelving and slat walls are for sale.

“The biggest thing for me is that I’m going to miss the people who come in that I didn’t see in any other setting,” says Zetterholm. “But hopefully they will still call on the phone. It will still be me who answers.”