The legacy of the Shadid & Schaus building

The Shadid & Schaus building has become an icon of downtown Edmond. After around thirty years of occupying the building, Shadid and Schaus recently moved out. Randel Shadid, one of the building’s owners for the last few decades, made a significant impact on the business community of Edmond during the time he owned it.

The building’s history

The property the Shadid & Schaus building was on was formerly the location of the First United Methodist Church, established in 1889 after the Land Run. In November 1891, Central State University—now the University of Central Oklahoma—held its first class in the church with just 23 students. A fire destroyed that building in 1927.

The current building was constructed in 1929. Shadid said, “[It] was the first multifamily building in north Oklahoma County.”

Around fifty years later, the building had fallen into disrepair. “We bought it in 1991 or 1992,” Shadid shared. “It had been vacant for about fifteen years and was in deplorable condition.” Initially, Shadid planned to demolish the structure and build a new building.

“I had a structural engineer look at it,” Shadid said, “and he said, ‘The building’s sounder than any building in Edmond.’” As a result, Shadid and his partner decided to keep the building and fix it up.

Impact on the business community

When they purchased the building, the basement had three feet of standing water in it. Nonetheless, Shadid and Schaus decided to finish it out and lease it to business owners who needed low rent for various reasons.

“It worked out great because we had six one-person offices basically and a conference room down there, plus a little kitchen and a bathroom,” shared Shadid.

Originally, the building did not have the third floor, but its structure lent itself to adding one. As a result, they added a loft of approximately 1,800 square feet and leased that space out as well.

Shadid estimated that they leased the space to twenty to twenty-five businesses over the years. They never had trouble renting the space because they intentionally kept their prices well below the going rates.

Shadid explained, “I was under the market the whole time. Once we had our mortgage paid off, we didn’t need to get rich. I started a business on my own fifty years ago, and I remember appreciating rent space that wasn’t going to break me.”

In the last decade they were in the building, they turned the first floor into an art gallery. Shadid was looking for space downtown to build a gallery. He shared, “One day [Steve] walked in and said, ‘I’ll tell you what, why don’t I move upstairs, I’ll take the second floor, and you do the gallery down here?’”

Shadid hated to shut down the gallery but said that running his practice, managing the building, and running the gallery was a lot of work. He said, “I still have people come and tell me they hate me for closing the gallery. But my living was practicing the law, and I didn’t need to burn the candle at both ends.”

Selling the building but staying in downtown Edmond

Shadid retired recently, and he and his partner, Steve Schaus, decided to sell the building. Shadid said, “The timing was right for us to sell. I didn’t need that much space and didn’t need to worry about managing a building.” Having recently turned 75, Shadid was looking to spend more time relaxing.

Then Schaus, a CPA, passed away in December 2021. Also in December, the sale of the building closed. Shadid explained, “We closed the sale in December 2021, but I had a proviso in our contract that Steve’s CPA practice and I could stay there until May 31 and that our other tenants could stay.”

As May 31 approached, the new owner reached out to Shadid, said he didn’t have plans for the building yet and offered to let Shadid stay longer. Shadid and the new owner of Schaus’s CPA practice took him up on the offer. Finally, in October 2022, Shadid moved out and relocated to another office around the corner on Main.

When asked why he loved downtown Edmond so much, he shared that there were several reasons. “Number one, I was raised in Altus,” Shadid said, “and my parents had a business downtown.” That had a significant impact on him.

He also enjoys the community downtown. He shared, “Edmond has always had a viable business community downtown and an active group of merchants.”

Finally, he finds downtown very convenient. “I enjoy having things that I need within walking distance. I can be home from two minutes from my office. [There are] a lot of benefits to me for the last fifty years of being downtown. So I was real pleased that we were able to stay.”