The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

After 11 years, 21st & Memorial is getting a grocery store again. A Walmart Neighboorhood Market. Here's the info I found:

  • Property data page for 1939 S Memorial Dr at Tulsa County Assessor site. Shows that Walmart purchased the property in 2016.
http://www.assessor.tulsacounty.org/assessor-property.php?account=R30425931204200&return=close (http://www.assessor.tulsacounty.org/assessor-property.php?account=R30425931204200&return=close)

  • A sewer plug permit (#430121) was recently issued by the City of Tulsa. Generally, a sewer plug is required before demolition, so it appears they will be taking down the building.

  • A commercial building permit application (#422251), with Walmart Neighborhood Market listed on the application, has been submitted to the city. (The address listed on the app is 8127 E 21st St.)

(To look up building permit/application info, go to http://timeline.cityoftulsa.org/Timeline4/PlanReview.aspx (http://timeline.cityoftulsa.org/Timeline4/PlanReview.aspx) and plug in the permit/app #s listed above, or search by address.)

I grew up in '80s and '90s near this intersection and my family's business office is still here as well. There was a grocery store on the NE corner since '85, opening as Skaggs Alpha Beta, briefly rebranding as Jewel Osco in 1991 before being purchased by and changing its name to Albertsons in 1992. Albertsons closed this store along with the one on the NE corner of 31st & Garnett and their pair of Broken Arrow locations in 2006. (They finally left the Oklahoma market altogether in 2007, selling most of their stores to various companies and closing the others that presumably found no buyer.) Since then, this intersection has been fairly dead development-wise, with the exception of a Sonic location opened in early 2009 and a QuikTrip Gen-2 store in 2010, both on pad sites near the former Albertsons property.

I'm actually kind of surprised. With the Walmart Supercenter at 2nd & Memorial and Neighborhood Market locations on the SW corner of 31st & Garnett and at 21st & Yale, I didn't think we'd see another grocery store here ever. The demographics on this side of the city have changed quite a bit since my childhood.

Drove by today and saw heavy equipment demolishing east end of building, which served as Albertson regional offices in 80s/90s.  Wonder if the whole building is coming down. 

I miss Albertsons and even Kmart. Where tge typical Walmart carries 2-3 brands of a particular product, the other two always seemed to have more choices. Probably contributed to downfall.

They took down the entire Homeland at 31st & Harvard, so I'd bet this is a complete nuke and rebuild.  I'm not aware of Wal-Mart re-purposing old buildings.

It's very rare for a Wal-Mart to re-purpose an old building. It's not efficient for them even though they have billions of dollars.

Joingy (https://joingy.com)

Stopped by there last night after going to Cimmaron Bar just down the street.  The entire building is gone now and debris is cleared.  Looks so strange that way after that building stood there for so long.

I doubt many people are aware of it, but that Albertson's also housed their regional office.

I'm one that did.  Not sure how long it lasted there but I remember that.

It was there well before 1985.  Im thinking mid to late 1970s.  My mom shopped there a lot.  I used to walk there with my grandparents on Saturday mornings to have breakfast at the cafe inside.

Yep, my cousin and his ex-wife worked there in the early 80s and I remember making a trek to it the night of the 1984 Memorial Day flood....it was there a lot longer than 1985.  And I remember where that cafe was also....east side of the building near that east exit and there were some arcade games right there too...

Did it exist as a Skaggs before it was an Albertson's?

As I recall what was last a Reasor's at 51st & Harvard (and between that and when Albertson's closed it was a Food Pyramid) was a Skaggs at least as far back as the early 1970's, then it was, I think, Skaggs Albertson's, then Skaggs Alpha-Beta, then Albertson's.  At least I believe that was the lineage of the brand.  Anyone else remember?

IIRC the location at 51st & Harvard was called Katz at one time. The 21st & Memorial was IIRC, Skaggs, Skaggs Alpha Beta, Jewell Osco, Skaggs Albertsons, then Albertsons when I moved away in 1998. I seem to remember the 21st & Memorial location opened in 1973 or 1974.

Didn't realize it was that old, but I do remember my cousin working at it when it was Skaggs Alpha Beta because as teenagers we used to called it "Skaggs Master Beta"....LOL

You rapscallions

I moved into the Michael Heights Addition in 1963...with the parental life support systems.  Southeast corner of 21st/Memorial.  There was a sign just east of Memorial on 21st maybe 200 ft that said "City Limits  Tulsa, OK  Population 162,000".   Was actually more by that point.

Where Skaggs/Albertsons was had a cattle ranch - I hit my first cow out of that pasture on a dark rainy night in 1967 - it just walked across the lane and stuck it's head in front of the headlights.  Hey...maybe THAT is what they mean by "headlights"...!   Lol, I make myself laugh.

Mom got a part time job at Skaggs for something to do as we grew older...mostly to get away from us, I suspect.  Horrible company to work for!  Managers were horrendous!



Sipes put a grocery store at 31st and Memorial about 1965 or so.  Used to go there for coffee - they had free coffee for shoppers at the back of the store.  Big building that is Drysdale's now...