Tenant clashes, rent defaults upset vision at EastPoint in northeast OKC

EastPoint on NE 23 drew accolades nationwide for the efforts taken to redevelop a commercial stretch along the historically Black corridor while avoiding gentrification by giving tenants a shot at ownership.

But five years later that vision is being ripped apart with several tenants either closing or being evicted after falling months and even years behind on rent.

The owners showed The Oklahoman evidence they took extensive efforts to help tenants. But some, like Brittani Hunter, owner of Spiked, have left angry and bitter over the experience.

“Ashamed. Angry. Embarrassed. Irate. Failure. Dumb. Unworthy. Those are just a few of the emotions I’ve been feeling since realizing I was going to close Spiked,” Hunter said. “I feel like I let the community down. It’s no secret that I was fighting to keep Spiked open. But I’d do it again if that meant we could continue being a safe space for the eastside.”

Spiked and Belle Books Boutique and More both recently were evicted after admittedly getting months behind on paying rent. Kindred Spirits, a live music lounge, closed earlier this year while new operators took over a fitness center at the shopping center.

Jabee Williams, owner of Eastside Pizza and Scrambl’d at the shopping center, also leases office space at EastPoint for his nonprofit, Live Free.

Launching businesses during the pandemic, he said, added to the challenges already presented by trying to reverse decades of decline along NE 23.

“This development is still on the outskirts of where people think of where they want to get coffee, where they want to go eat,” Williams said. “They don’t go past the Capitol. We knew that when we started. We knew that it was going to be difficult.”

Hunter opened her shop, which featured coffees “spiked” with rum, Kahlua, whiskey or vodka” along with an array of pastries, in the summer of 2021. It was her first retail business.

More: New grocery store, more development in neglected east OKC attracts national attention

A promising start with The Pivot Project, who had developed in OKC before

The Pivot Project, which previously developed stretches of Uptown 23rd, the Plaza District, Midtown and Farmers Market, took on the challenge of bringing life to the long-neglected NE 23 corridor by first renovating a boarded-up former truck stop into a medical clinic and grocery.

The second phase took another worn-out strip shopping center at NE 23 and Rhode Island and with the help of nonprofits, angel investors and tax increment financing assistance from the city, turned it into an award-winning redevelopment aiming to attract other developers to the area.

EastPoint offered tenants a unique opportunity aimed at preventing outside gentrification. The Black-owned businesses opening in the retail strip each were offered an opportunity to include an equity stake in the building as part of their leases.

The agreements provided tenants with a promise of 15% ownership if they stayed in business and current on rent for 10 years. After that 10 years, the tenants have the option to sell their ownership stakes.

Of the 12 tenants that started at EastPoint, Spiked and Belle Books Boutique are now empty, Intentional Fitness was turned over in a sublease to an office tenant, and developer Jonathan Dodson said Kindred Spirits is set to reopen under a new operator.

When Hunter first opened Spiked in 2021, she saw the equity opportunity as added incentive to opening a business along NE 23.

“I would have put my coffee shop here either way,” Hunter said at the time. “But absolutely I’d put my coffee shop here if I could be a part of this as more than just a business owner. As far as ownership goes, that was just sugar on top. You can’t walk away from that. What other building would give me equity ownership with opening my business here?”

Three years later, Hunter’s coffee shop is closed after she was served eviction papers.

Tenant describes problem with a new property manager

Unhappy with Pivot Project and what she saw as a lack of interest in working with her to improve her business operation, Hunter tore out the coffee bar and other improvements that ordinarily would have been kept in place upon termination of a lease.

“The truth is, on Feb. 1 tenants were sent an introduction email from the new property manager and not even an hour later almost every tenant at EastPoint got a notice of default,” Hunter said. “The only organizations that didn’t receive a notice of default were businesses who don’t rely on customer sales.”

Hunter said communications with Pivot Project were great in the early months when Pivot Project, led by Jonathan Dodson, was up for a national Urban Land Institute award and was featured in an urban planning book and a documentary.

Dodson said he did continue to communicate and provided The Oklahoman with copies of correspondence showing Hunter was notified in June 2022 that she was in default of her lease and owed back rent, fees and interest totaling more than $15,000.

“In January 2022 we notified Spiked Coffee that they were past due and in default,” Dodson said. “We worked out a payment plan which was not followed. The tenant requested more time to receive grant money. It was at this point we offered to help her find a new tenant to sublease so she could maintain her ownership. She declined. Pivot also tried to connect Spiked Coffee with grant money and business training nonprofits to assist her in helping the business become profitable.”

Dodson said rent payments continued to be a problem following the June 2022 default letter and that Hunter asked in October that year if she could terminate the lease.

He said in February 2023, he met with all the tenants to discuss how Pivot Project could better help them succeed with their businesses. He said some took him up on the offer. In July 2023, a year after the first default letter, Hunter was still behind in her rent and asked for additional time to receive a grant award. Dodson said she again declined an offer to find a sub-tenant that would have allowed Hunter to maintain ownership in EastPoint.

“In February 2024, we gave her notice that she had 30 days to catch up on rent or we would have to start the default process,” Dodson said.

“After moving forward with default and termination of the lease, Brittani stated on a Facebook post that she would tear out the bar though we told her this was against her lease,” Dodson said. “She proceeded to deface the property and tear out the bar and other fixtures.”

Hunter told The Oklahoman she removed the bar because she was the one who installed it.

“Spiked promised $80,000 in tenant improvements (my buildout) but by the time we started negotiating my lease Pivot had run out of money, so I had to do all of my electric, plumbing, bars and back area.”

Dodson said Hunter was given less tenant improvements but that was in exchange for lowering her square footage, building out restrooms, provisions that cut her rent by $12,000 a year. Dodson also provided The Oklahoman with a copy of a letter of intent, prior to the lease, that showed there would not be a tenant allowance.

Courtney Strickland, owner of Belle Books Boutique and More, said she was hoping a last-minute effort to raise money would keep her in business. She said Pivot Project would not agree to another extension and she moved out last week.

“I've learned a lot as a small business owner,” Strickland said. “This was my first time owning a retail establishment. I did it with no capital. I did it with my own funds.”

Strickland said she learned, too late, of resources available to assist her in operating a bookstore in northeast Oklahoma City. She said some business owners at EastPoint were aware of such resources while others, including herself, didn’t find out until much later.

EastPoint was pitched to us as a collaborative unity project,” Strickland said. “I did not experience that. I think if we could have put our heads together, it could have been a successful business community.”

Williams said he understands the struggles experienced by Hunter and Strickland, adding he has had to work long hours and invest time learning how to not just run a business but to do so in a long-neglected minority community.

“For EastPoint overall, I think it’s been a great opportunity for some,” Williams said. “For others, I don’t know enough to say. I hate to see Brittani leave. She’s a good friend.”

Williams said EastPoint has to break through with potential customers throughout the city who routinely travel to urban core destinations like Uptown, the Plaza District, Paseo, Midtown and Bricktown.

“We can have the best concepts here,” Williams said. “Kindred Spirits was a great concept, so was Spiked and Belle Books. But we’re so far east that the community supports us, but the city doesn’t. We see people coming during Juneteenth, when they want to go to Black-owned businesses. In February (Black history month) they’re buying Black. But at other times of the year, they’re going somewhere else.”

Ultimately, Williams said, EastPoint may simply be struggling from starting out during a pandemic and being ahead of its time.

“It’s a great idea,” Williams said. “I hate to see somebody come behind Brittani and go in her spot, not be Black and come in at the right time and kill it. And the only reason she couldn’t kill it is because there wasn’t enough time and it was too early.”

The time for EastPoint, he added, is coming. Other properties to the east are being renovated and redeveloped.

“Last year, we were contemplating closing the doors at Eastside Pizza,” Williams said. “But we knew it could succeed. We pushed through.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Tenant disputes upset EastPoint effort to revive Black corridor in OKC