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  • New signage at Claremore’s Ne-Mar Center went up Thursday. The decades-old shopping center is completing a renovation project and adding two national chains this summer. Zack Stoycoff

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May 28, 2010

Signs going up, business booming

Maurice’s opens Saturday, Little Caesars pizza to come this summer

Zack Stoycoff Staff Reporter

CLAREMORE — Just as Claremore’s Ne-Mar Center nears completion of a $1 million renovation project, two national chains — Maurice’s and Little Caesars pizza — are preparing to open in the new-look strip mall.

Maurice’s, a retail chain specializing in young women’s clothing, officially opens tomorrow after a ribbon cutting Thursday. Little Caesars will open in the east side of the center June 22.

As part of a renovation begun in March 2009, the center has also added a new stucco façade, a new sign tower that was installed Thursday and two smaller frontal signs to be completed by Saturday.

“We’ve basically tried to modernize the shopping center,” co-owner Steve Neely said.

With yet another retail addition — Hibbet Sports, a regional sporting goods store that opened April 10 — Neely said he hopes the decades-old Ne-Mar Center will again become the premier shopping center of Claremore.

“We’re just trying to create an environment conducive to our tenants and shoppers,” he said. “It’s just a nice place for citizens of Claremore to shop.”

New landscaping in the parking lot, including new trees, is part of an effort to give the center a more modern feel and “keep tax dollars in Claremore,” Neely said.

The first leg of the renovation began when the building that held Goldie’s Patio Grill, which relocated to The Market shopping center on the south side of Claremore in March 2009, was demolished to make way for Hibbet Sports and Maurice’s.

Those two stores added 10,000 square feet to the center, bringing the total retail space to 112,000 square feet.

The brick frontage was replaced along the upper portion of the center this year while JC Penney, its longtime anchor tenant, updated its signage and modernized parts of its interior.

The entire project cost more than $1 million, Neely said.

Maurice’s has more than 750 stores in 44 states, with branches in Owasso and Pryor.

Little Caesars, the fourth-largest pizza chain in the United States, already has seven stores in the Tulsa area, with the nearest on 31st Street in northeast Tulsa.

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