Entrepreneur invests in north Tulsa shopping center revitalization

“This shopping center was about 60% of the resources that was provided for this community, and I thought to myself, ‘If I could revitalize this … and stimulate the economy out here, that’s a win-win,’” he said.

Jones, 50, and his wife, Natalie Jones, 49, have invested more than $350,000 into revitalizing the Northridge shopping center on the east side of Peoria Avenue at 50th Place North.

He expects to invest a total of perhaps $1 million into refurbishing at least five buildings at the site, with amenities such as several eateries, a small “Dave & Busters”-like arcade and a sports bar.

“We want this to be resourceful to where they can come and get everything they need in that shopping center,” he said.

Harold and Natalie Jones said they opened the first urgent care clinic in north Tulsa, Novastar Family Medical, in 2023.

Natalie Jones, a nurse practitioner, is in charge of Novastar.

Harold Jones, a Booker T. Washington High School graduate, played football at the University of Missouri in the mid-1990s, when he met Natalie in Columbia, her hometown.

He earned his degree in finance and marketing.

“I started out with the Jim Glover (auto) group,” he said.

“So I was a finance guy, worked with Glover, made a lot of money through sales.”

At that time — in the early-2000s — he said, he also helped pay for Natalie’s goal of continuing her education. She has a master’s degree.

“And so, at that time, my wife was in school. She finished school. I left Glover, retired from Glover (in 2007),” he said.

“I started my own finance company. I’m fortunate. The good man upstairs blessed me to have a finance company. I dissolved that; then I started a trucking business, … and what I recently sold was my dealership,” McKee Motorsports, which he owned with a partner.

He has since begun revitalizing the shopping center.

Jones said that after he and Natalie opened Novastar, they were thinking about expanding that venture to the state’s capital city.

“We were getting ready to go invest in Oklahoma City. … We were going to start three to four urgent cares (clinics) in the deserted areas — like north Tulsa — in Oklahoma City,” he said.

“The … guy (former owner of the property), who lives in Oklahoma City, called me about this shopping center over here. I’m like, ‘How did you get my number?’” Jones said.

That was in was February.

“Everybody in the community was saying, ‘You might be one who could buy it,’” Jones said.

Jones said he was told that the Oklahoma City seller had multiple people who wanted to buy or rent one building in the shopping center but that he wanted to sell it as a whole.

About a month went by, Jones said, and the seller reduced his square-footage selling price.

“And at that point, I thought, ‘This could be great for this community,’” Jones said.

But he still had reservations.

“I thought about it. It was an eyesore. I’m telling you, it was so run-down. Every building was graffiti of different colors,” Jones said, adding concerns about transient people and damage in the parking lot.

But despite the challenges, he decided to go all in, and the purchase was finalized in April.

The biggest initial costs were repaving the parking lot, putting new roofs on the buildings and installing air conditioning, ventilation and heating, he said.

Jones has plans for two phases of the development, the first of which he is aiming to complete by the end of the year.

Among several 8,000-square-foot buildings he is refurbishing, his vision is for each to have its own yet-to-be-finalized name:

• One with restaurants, including a breakfast bar, sandwiches, and fish and barbecue offerings, as part of a food court concept
• An arcade including both the newest virtual and classic video games, with food offerings
• A coffee and donut shop and an ice cream parlor
• A co-working space

The lone-existing business at the site — a Tops and Bottoms school uniform store at 5071 N. Peoria Ave. — will not be affected by the development and will remain, he said.

Also, Jones said, his aim is to provide low-cost meals for every student at nearby McLain High School via his development.

“The breakfast restaurant will be serving food for all of the McLain High School kids. What we will do is … if you have an ID, those kids will be able to get pre-wrapped breakfast sandwiches for 50 cents to $1 — just something that’s real cheap for them,” he said.

“One of the main reasons why kids don’t go to school is that they don’t have clean clothes or don’t have food to eat.”

Natalie Jones called the development “exciting.” Harold Jones, who is serving as the general contractor, “works very long days — very long days — starting at 7 (a.m.), but it’s exciting.”

One thing that will not be visible until the end of the year is a new lighted sign for the planned resurrected Northridge shopping center.

The existing main sign structure for the site is similar to those at places such as The Farm shopping center (51st Street and Sheridan Road) and The Mill shopping center (71st Street and Sheridan Road).

“Right now, the buildings take precedence over everything,” Harold Jones said.

“The sign we got out there, that can get done like that,” he said, snapping his fingers.

A delay makes sense for finishing the sign, including wiring, so its lights won’t confuse people who might think the shopping center is open.

“I need to keep it the way it is,” he said. “Get Phase 1 done, and we’re getting ready to paint the signs (of the buildings) and then start putting different spaces of what businesses are going to reside.”

Harold and Natalie Jones both believe in the power of Black-owned businesses, Black entrepreneurs and Black customers.

“I think it would be a disservice for someone not to put something into the community who grew up here,” Harold Jones said.

“The measure of success of what we’re doing will reside in the people of the community, not the return on investment, not the (property value) appreciation,” he said.

The goal is for community members to learn that they can rely on the resources offered through the development, to make it “a safe-haven for the kids, … the whole nine,” Harold Jones said. “I think the man upstairs has been with us so far every step, and we have a ways to go.”

Another goal for the project, he said, is giving local businesses more opportunities to “show their skills and … bring their business and their brand.”

“There’s a lot of small entrepreneurs out here who don’t have brick and mortar,” he said, “and if they do, they have to go way out south (Tulsa) to try to find it, or to Sand Springs.”