Sorry for the long post, but I should have started a thread on my little slice of Tulsa 10 years ago.
I've lived near 31st and Harvard for nearly 15 years now. A good bit has changed and a good bit more is changing just in the square mile surrounding the intersection. Few things truly of note on a municipal scale, but I was thinking of all the changes in the last 15 years in this small area that is +/- half a mile of 31st and Harvard. Since we don't have an active neighborhood group, I'm starting one here.
Since I have lived there, in no particular order but starting with the negatives:
- The office at 31st and Marion changed from a dentist office to an abandoned building (owned by Arkansas Valley Petroleum, Inc., which owns the north stretch along Harvard down to and including the old Braums)
- The gas station next door was abandoned, demolished, slated to be a Fiesta Mart (coming soon! For 10 years), and abandoned to be an empty lot
- The Braum's office on 31st was abandoned and remains empty
- Eisenhower International school was shut down (moved) turned into an "enrollment center," eliminating any remaining kinds in my neighborhood who walked to school
- Blockbuster closed (no one noticed)
- The Park surrounding EIS was removed for parking and to make sure there aren't kids around (they tore out the running track, baseball field, soccer goals, basketball court, foursquare markings, swing set, filled the field in with earth berms for some reason, and tore out two sets of playground equipment with bridges, slides, and slide poles. They replaced it all with a single set of new, safe, nothing to do playground equipment. Which they only put in 6 months later after neighbors complained. Not that I'm bitter).
- TCBY closed, become some other ice cream placed, closed again, became a balloon place, and closed again. The strip mall there has two chiropractors now instead of one
- Springer Clinic at 31st and Yale was torn down to make way for a new bank, but has been an empty lot for a few years
- Steve's Sundry closed, replaced by an expanded Southern Ag (I like Southern Ag, but...)
- At the strip mall between 30th St. and Place, Kerry Cakes opened and closed. A crap payday loan place opened and closed. Some kid of essential oils place opened and closed. A sketchy tattoo place was opened and closed and replaced with a much nicer tattoo place.
- Amish Kitchen opened and closed
- The Alley opened and closed
- The restaurant space in the strip mall at 30th and Harvard became B52s, something else, then a soul food place, and now is a Paleo Diet place
- At least a half dozen gyms opened and closed in various locations
- Homeland was replaced by Walmart Neighborhood Market
- Redbox opened at Walgreens, and at the Neighborhood market
- A stable gym and an awesome barbershop went in in the strip mall between 30th St/Pl
- Two chiropractic offices went east of Wendy's
- The pharmacy next to Walgreens turned into a Natural Grocers
- Midtown Bicycles moved in and is awesome
- IV Play went from a crappy dive bar, to a barely functioning cesspool, to closed, to The Colony, to a no smoking 7 night a week live music venue
- Dollar Tree opened up
- Trenchers Deli opened after some other Deli closed
- Southern Ag Expanded dramatically
- Braum's added a Fresh market
- Several infill houses (one brand new 2 story brick colonial house which is very different for the area)
- West side of Harvard is seeing a ridiculous amount of residential infill, just starting to bleed over
- Nursing home expanded on 28th St. just off Harvard
- Dress for Sucess moved into the strip mall corner at 31st and Harvard
- Methodist Manner (just inside the target area IMHO) did a massive and nice looking expansion
- Umbertos Pizza opened up
Mike Auto Haus and Albert G's keep on trucking. Somehow the Staples and Radio Shack survived the ax. Cox continues to operating a service facility. Two Chinese restaurants and two Thai restaurants still compete with two sub shops and 2 diners. Ranch Acres still keeps me primed with libations. Ranch Acres vet seems busier and busier, but holds steady and hasn't expanded. You can still buy pool supplies, custom clothes, tax services, attorney services, various martial arts or dance lessons, more than a dozen restaurants, office supplies, oil changes, specialty German automobile servicing, a consignment shop, an oil clothe shop, a couple personnel service places, 3 chiropractors, 3 natural foods stores, four churches, two nursing homes, two banks and an investment house, a bike shop, a couple of bars, a library, and a partridge in a pear tree (at Southern Ag and Under the Sun, respectively, supplies may be limited). We're talking about a single square mile +/-.
So that is what has happened. Here is what IS happening at the moment. Lets start with the bad news:
- TTCU is building a new headquarters building on 81st Street. I have not heard any plans for the old building at 31st and New Haven
- Eddy's is closing, supposedly to be a bank (31st and Harvard was going to be another bank too, but the Eddy's lot has been owned by Tulsa Federal Credit Union for years now)
But also...
- A new "private car collection" building is going in on 27th St., just behind Staples. 6400 Sq. foot burnt red tin building with an "rural residential" theme.
- $75k remodel of the Library Building at 29th and Harvard
- Yoga Quest (a hot Yoga studio) is going into the complex Aikins is in
- Supposedly a new Fiesta Mart at the corner of 31st and Lousville, where a gas station was torn out in 2005 - but perhaps extending from the corner (old Dentist office) all the way down nto and including the old Braums training building. The same company still owns all the land, and acquired the Braum's building in 2011. But there is two new signs up announcing "Coming Soon, Fall 2016: Fiesta Mart." We shall see... the original "coming soon" sign rotted away after ~10 years.
