Retail shops coming to Mother Road Market in Tulsa

The Mother Road Market in Tulsa soon will add a retail development at Lewis Avenue and 11th Street, aka Route 66.

The Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation that built the $5.5 million market of various mini-restaurants announced Friday it will add a $1.5 million Shops at Mother Road Market that will include five retail spaces, the Tulsa World reported.

“Through review platforms, social media feedback and personal feedback our team has received, we have recognized that our customer base is interested in additional retail in this area,” LTFF CEO and President Elizabeth Frame Ellison said in a statement. “We believe that Shops at Mother Road Market will give the customers what they want, while also continuing to inspire a culture of entrepreneurship along Route 66.” […]

Shop spaces available will range from about 575 square feet to 1,500 square feet. Shops at Mother Road Market will also add roughly 32 parking spaces and a patio on the south side of the development.

The applications page at the Mother Road Market website gave an indication of what sort of shops it was seeking:

While applications from all retail industries (besides those outlined in the restrictions section) will be considered, the Mother Road Market leasing panel is particularly interested in shop concepts in these broad categories based upon market trends, customer base and shopping habits. Applicants are encouraged to think creatively in each category. For example, a bookstore could focus on graphic novels and comics with associated games and figures, and a toy store could serve children with developmental differences.

The foundation stated it will announce the winners of the retail leases in November, with the Shops at Mother Road Market opening in spring 2020.

That corner now is the site of a Boost Mobile store and cellphone repair shop, according to an image from Google Street View. It appears, based on an artist’s rendering of the Shops at Mother Mother Market, it will repurpose the building, plus add a few.

The artist’s rendering also shows a neon sign on top of the main building. The corner used to be where the historic Meadow Gold neon sign stood on top of a building. A car dealership wanted the sign destroyed, but Route 66 and local preservationists managed to dismantle the sign piece by piece, restore the neon, store it and find a new location to erect it near 11th Street and Peoria Avenue, about a mile west.

The Mother Road Market, a food hall and incubator for about 20 businesses, opened in November and has experienced “stunning” success. The market reused the 1939 Scrivner-Stevens Grocery building.

(Artist’s rendering of the Shops at Mother Road Market in Tulsa)

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