Retail Return
Talks underway to locate stores in renovated North East Town Center
Renovations are complete at a once blighted northeast Oklahoma City shopping center and leasing negotiations are underway with a dollar store, a national grocery chain, a salon, barbershop and a state agency to bring life back to the corner of NE 36 and Kelley Avenue.
Nearby residents are catching any chance they can to question architects, contractors and anyone else who might have information about what’s next for the
When I opened this, I wanted to do something that would stay in the community, something that would bring business back to the northeast community. We do poetry nights, we do live music; we have a restaurant. We do a lot of entertainment.”
Ray Brown, owner of the Ice Event Center and Grill
property. On a recent visit, architect Troy Downing was quickly approached by Carolyn Lee Williams, an area resident since 1979.
Williams, like many in the community, long sought a revival of the 100,000-square-foot shopping center at 1148 NE 36.
“This is absolutely beautiful,” Williams said. “It’s the most beautiful place on the northeast side. And I’m going to love seeing whatever they put over here. I just know it’s going to be nice.”
Add Ward 7 Councilman John Pettis to the list of those eager to see deals done for the plaza, which was an early target for revitalization when Pettis was elected to his first term four years ago. The renovation alone, he said, is spurring a source of pride in the community.
Currently the shopping center has just two tenants — the Ice Event Center and Grill and Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. But Downing predicts news of leases should be coming out within the next few weeks.
Best catfish in the city
Ray Brown, owner of the Ice Event Center and Grill, is among those eagerly awaiting the announcement of the anchor stores. He opened the restaurant and event center seven years ago and is open every day, 7 a.m. to midnight, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner.
He boasts of cooking up the best catfish in the city.
“When I opened this, I wanted to do something that would stay in the community, something that would bring business back to the northeast community,” Brown said. “We do poetry nights, we do live music; we have a restaurant. We do a lot of entertainment.”
Business has been good, Brown said, but he sees even better times ahead if the shopping center ends up with the anchors envisioned by his landlord.
“Everybody loves this; they want to see what is next,” Brown said.
When the plaza opened in the early 1960s, it was a source of pride for northeast Oklahoma City, home to a Safeway grocery store, TG&Y, C.R. Anthony’s, Cherry’s Cafeteria and an assortment of retailers representing what could be found in retail centers throughout the metro.
But by the 1990s, the shopping center was a ghost of its former self, littered with empty storefronts, bars on shop windows and weeds in a largely vacant, sprawling parking lot.
Williams recalls that even in the 1980s, the shopping center was in decline.
Confrontations between Pettis and the owner, Charles Shadid, evolved into discussions on how to revive the property. Shadid’s son-in-law, architect Rick Brown (both Brown and Downing are RBA Architects), had already drawn up plans showing how a renovation could be done.
The $4 million redevelopment started in early 2016 and stripped away the old facades and brought in a modern look consisting of stone, steel and glass. The parking lot is neatly landscaped, and the entire shopping center is well lit.
The bars are gone. The broken windows are gone. But the job isn’t done.
“We need the anchor store first,” Ray Brown said. “Otherwise, this won’t work.”
If a grocery commits to the North East Town Center, Brown is ready to sell his dream to anyone who will listen.
“Come on in, take a chance,” Brown said. “This is definitely going to be really good with all the business coming in. I won’t be able to handle all the business that will be coming in. So I welcome another restaurant. I want the company.”