How OKC's Shoppes at Northpark has rolled with the retail punches for 50 years
It's a small mall, as malls go, and rare, considering the decline in popularity of suburban indoor shopping, and for it to still be open after 50 years — with the same ownership — is something worth noting.
So Shoppes at Northpark, at NW 122 and N May Avenue, is celebrating, complete with the signing of a new major tenant, Bush League Sports Tavern, by OKC's Killer Squid Hospitality, to open next summer.
The annual holiday open house, from 5 to 8 p.m. Nov. 16, will include photos of the mall over the years, as well as local pop-up shops, live music by local entertainers, and one famous outsider, Santa Claus.
Killer Squid is local. It has The Hamilton Supperette & Lounge, already in the mall, Dado's Pizza OKC nearby at 10942 N May, and Cafe 7 Pastaria and Delicatessen, also close by at 14101 N May, plus Roosevelt's Gastropub in Tulsa.
"Local" is key for Shoppes at Northpark.
Northpark Mall: There was nothing like it in north Oklahoma City
"Local" is the secret of the success of Shoppes at Northpark, said Kevyn Colburn, vice president of owner Tom Morris Enterprises. When it opened, originally with the name Northpark Mall, there was nothing like it in north Oklahoma City, she said.
"The Shoppes at Northpark has always recruited local tenants and local customers," Colburn said. "It is a true specialty mall and just like larger malls serve a demographic, so does the Shoppes at Northpark. Our mission has always been to support local retailers and their customers."
That's one reason the mall can seem kind of old-fashioned, despite so many cool spots and shops, by supporting local charities and organizations.
"It comes from being a family-owned business with deep community roots," Colburn said. "We know Oklahoma City. We know our tenants and we know our customers.
"We strive to be a community-oriented property and believe it is very important to serve local residents in any manner we can, whether it’s hosting charity events, automobile shows, fashion shows or simply allowing citizens to walk within the mall."
NORTHPARK IN 2005: Urban mall With local ownership maintained, Northpark is rare among retail centers.
Northpark Mall wasn't Thomas S. Morris's only real estate development
Shoppes at Northpark dates to 1973, but its roots go back further than that, to a generation before Tom Morris.
"My father, Thomas S. Morris, was responsible for the first large development in Oklahoma City north of Hefner Road in 1959, Fame Homes in Stonegate," said Thomas G. Morris, who goes by Tom. "He added Quail Plaza Shopping Center in 1965 followed by Quail Plaza Apartments, Camelot and the quarter section that now is home to the Shoppes at Northpark."
In the 1960s, the elder Morris built Gaslight Dinner Theater "on a gravel NW 122nd and a Phillips 66 service station on the corner of NW 122nd and May Avenue," Tom Morris recalled. "May Avenue was two lanes at the time."
Thomas S. Morris was chairman of the Land Use and Development Council of the National Association of Home Builders, and he couldn't resist doing more.
"Being a cutting-edge developer and possessing a love for fine retail, it was natural for him to develop a mall," his son said. "Our twin theater tenant in Quail Plaza desired to have the first four-screen theater in Oklahoma, and Safeway grocery store wanted to be on the corner of NW 122nd and May Avenue, so in 1973 Northpark Mall was born."
Tom Morris joined the business full time in 1974 after graduating from Oklahoma City University and serving in the Marine Corps in Vietnam. Thomas S. Morris died in 1992.
"I am so grateful to each tenant and customer over the past five decades and looking forward to many more years of serving Oklahoma City," his son said.
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Shoppes at Northpark is in OKC's most popular retail area
Other malls may suffer, but Shoppes at Northpark is active, with nearly 40 stores and restaurants including longtime major tenant B.C. Clark Jewelers — "since 1892," and in the mall since 1979 — said Colburn, who handles leasing.
"Leasing has been good. Pure Pilates has recently opened and we currently have Tiny Bubbles wine bar under construction which is scheduled for a spring opening," she said.
It doesn't hurt that the small mall, with just 200,000 square feet of space, is in one of the strongest places for retail in the OKC area, said Jim Parrack, senior vice president and retail property specialist at commercial brokerage Price Edwards & Co.
OKC's north submarket, as defined by Price Edwards, has 7.4 million square feet of store space, nearly a quarter of the total in the metro area, Parrack said. It also has much larger Penn Square Mall and Quail Springs Mall, with a combined 2.23 million square feet of space, he said.
How does the Shoppes at Northpark compete?
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In OKC, Penn Square Mall and Quail Springs Mall versus Shoppes at Northpark: No contest, Price Edwards says
Parrack said the big malls, with national owners and so many national stores, aren't really in competition with Shoppes at Northpark, which carved a niche and has maintained it even as shopping and approaches to retailing changed.
"Shoppes at Northpark has very much followed the evolution of retail and the evolution of Oklahoma City over its 50 years," Parrack said. "When it was built, it was a fairly traditional enclosed mall with fairly typical enclosed-mall tenants."
Small malls weren't that unusual in the 1970s, he said, and it was in the right place as growth along May Avenue, the city's first major shopping corridor, followed housetops and increasing incomes north.
Over the years, the area around it matured and became more residential neighborhood oriented. At the same time, malls got bigger under big national companies, mostly in locations along interstate highways, not surrounded by houses, he said.
"Small malls had to transform themselves into a hybrid of mall and neighborhood centers, which Northpark did, and is reflected in their current name, Shoppes at Northpark," Parrack said of the name change in 2013, as big box stores seemed to descend on Oklahoma City.
He noted that many of its stores now have external entrances, and the tenant mix is much more neighborhood oriented, with six restaurants, a dozen health, beauty and fitness stores, plus "more mainstream" retailers.
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'A peek into Oklahoma City's retail soul' at NW 122 and N May Avenue
The mall just rolled with retail as it redefined itself, Parrack said.
"Fifty years has changed Oklahoma City, the neighborhood and retail," he said. "Northpark has changed with them, giving us a peek into Oklahoma City’s retail soul."
Morris and Colburn know Shoppes at Northpark is a gem.
"Fifty years in one location is really a milestone in the commercial retail industry. I cannot emphasize it enough," Colburn said. "We have had hundreds and hundreds of tenants during the time, and each of them contributed to our success and longevity.
"The same goes for the thousands of customers that have shopped with us. They are loyal and appreciate local businesses and they desire to support those businesses. It has been a great relationship."
She added, "And none of it would have happened without the vision of Thomas S. Morris."
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Senior Business Writer Richard Mize has covered housing, construction, commercial real estate and related topics for the newspaper and Oklahoman.com since 1999. Contact him at rmize@oklahoman.com. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Real Estate with Richard Mize. You can support Richard's work, and that of his colleagues, by purchasing a digital subscription to The Oklahoman. Right now, you can get 6 months of subscriber-only access for $1.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Small mall Shoppes at Northpark in OKC rolls with retail for 50 years
