Recordpub.com - KSU key to Kent redevelopment efforts

By Matt Fredmonsky

Record-Courier staff writer

It’s no secret Kent State University is slowly expanding its presence off campus and into the neighborhood west of the Kent State University Museum off South Lincoln Street.

Since 2007, the university and the KSU Foundation have purchased eight properties in this area, with a ninth set to close later this month, for a combined price tag of $1,390,500.

For university administrators, the purchases themselves are nothing new, though most of the sales closed in 2009.

Tom Clapper, the university’s director of risk management and real estate, said the city and KSU have conducted extensive planning efforts to create a physical connection between the campus and the downtown as part of Kent’s overall redevelopment efforts.

“And these acquisitions are all in support of that initiative,” Clapper said.

For Councilwoman Heidi Shaffer, whose Ward 5 includes the neighborhood and the western edge of campus, what’s new about the plan is how the city and KSU are approaching redevelopment of the neighborhood.

“Incremental in-fill is the process, but the term I’ve been fighting for is ‘neighborhood retention,’ to retain it as a residential neighborhood,” Shaffer said.

In 2004, the city adopted its Bicentennial Plan, which identified the neighborhood bordered by Haymaker Parkway, East College Avenue, South Lincoln and East Main streets as a controversial “special planning area” dubbed the Campus Link neighborhood.

The plan called for several major construction projects in the area, including a hotel and conference center, additional parking and more dense residential.

“I think most people got this image the neighborhood would be bulldozed, and the university would buy up all the land and move in,” Shaffer said. “And I think people were reacting to a vision that could be 30 years down the line. Well, that’s not going to happen. It’s certainly not going to happen all at once.”

Shaffer said university planners have since adopted a more surgical approach to buying and redeveloping “choice” properties in the neighborhood as they become available.

Some properties may be taken down over time and replaced with university facilities, such as an alumni center or visitors’ center.

Plans also have changed regarding the proposed location of the hotel and conference center and multi-modal transit facility; the new proposed site is across Haymaker Parkway into the downtown area.

Documents released by the city and university identify one link between the downtown and KSU campus as the tentatively titled Kent State University Hotel and Conference Center.

The hotel has been proposed for the Erie Street property acquired by the university, the former site of the Kent office of the Record-Courier, which closed in late 2007.

As for additional neighborhood redevelopment, Shaffer said planners are relying in large part on current property owners to redevelop their own land. An addendum to the Bicentennial Plan opened up the area to dense, multi-unit residential use, she said.

“We’re looking at this mostly as private development,” she said. “Whether it stays primarily rental, I see it hopefully developing into a mix.”

The university already has demolished two houses it bought in the neighborhood.

Properties purchased so far and their sale amounts include: 231 S. Willow St., $125,000; 220 S. Lincoln St., $150,000; 425 E. College Ave., $120,000; 225 S. Willow St., $155,000; 219 S. Willow St., $132,500; 214 and 220 S. Willow St., $267,000; and the former Record-Courier site at 206 E. Erie St., $300,000.

Clapper declined to discuss specific plans about future construction efforts or property purchases, but he did say the university “absolutely” intends to buy more properties in the neighborhood.

One solid aspect of the university’s plans is extension of The Esplanade — the on-campus leg of The Portage Hike and Bike Trail — from campus through the neighborhood and into downtown.

A conceptual master plan for the area approved by the KSU Board of Trustees in September showed plans for two new university buildings near the intersection of East Erie Street and Haymaker Parkway. Those plans remain intact, Clapper said.

“The emphasis is these are always conceptual plans,” he said. “The acquisitions we’re making and plan to make will all support this effort.”