Northland Shopping Center

Built in the late-50s / early-60s by I.A. "Jake" Jacobson, the developer of Ranch Acres and other retail centers in Tulsa, Northland Shopping Center was the first full-line open air shopping center in North Tulsa. It had a full complement of stores, including Dillard's and JC Penney's until right around 1980.

A Tulsan who shopped there during his childhood years says "There was a Firestone car repair on the corner out front. A Western Auto behind the Froug's, a Borden's cafeteria, a Texaco across the street, a Brown Dunkin on the other side of Hartford, TG&Y on the west end and a grocery store on the east end. The Froug's caved in one day after a heavy downpour, and later closed. The place was as classy as Southland up until the late 60s, and looked similar in design.....Many other stores that I just can't remember (I was just a kid)."

Another person remembers "Downtown Tulsa was the ideal Christmas shopping spot until the late sixties but do you remember Northland? It was the one of the first, one of the three largest shopping centers in the U.S. (world?). They always had big promotions and it was such an awesome place to shop at Christmas. The end for Northland came with the opening of Southland and South Roads."

As more and more North Tulsans headed south for their shopping, so did the fortunes of Northland. After becoming severly blighted, it closed around 1990. Sometime in the mid-90's, it was revived as a home for a community outreach center, then in April 2003 the following announcement was made by the Tulsa Metro Chamber:

Northland Renovation Planned Neighbor for Neighbor announced plans for a $3.2 million project to renovate the former Northland Shopping Center for its new offices, retail and a school. The plan calls for extensive renovation of the outside structure and remodeling of space to accommodate the new tenants. Ground was broken on April 29th (2003) and the facility will be renamed Northland.

Currently Originally built as one of Tulsa's first malls, the open-air Northland Shopping Center has been renovated after many years of neglect. It has successfully been re-purposed as a office complex, dubbed Northland Center. Presently, the primary tenant is a community outreach center.

References

The information of this page is from Lost Tulsa.com.