Esplanade Thoughts...

The hotel, conference center and restaurants may get all the press for the downtown project, but I think the best part of the project will prove to be one of the more humble elements; the Esplanade extension.    

I think of the Esplanade extension as a uniquely Kent combination of old Route 66 and the Appalachian Trail —  opening up a whole new town gown frontier by physically reconnecting Kent’s commercial district with Kent’s largest group of customers in a park-like setting that is full of its own surprises and amenities. 

Sidewalks have a single-minded sense of purpose; getting you from point A to point B without a lot of extra hooplah — which is why in Esplande-speak, sidewalks are a good walk spoiled. 

Rather, the Esplanade is meant to appeal to the age old need to stroll, absorb and contemplate.  The Esplanade will get you where you want to go, but like a life lesson, it will also show how the journey can be the best part of the trip. 

This new pedestrian boulevard is still early in the design phases but the partners to the project are committed to figuring out how to give the Esplanade its own sense of place.  They’re deep in discussions of walkway width, color of pavers, landscaping elements, art opportunities, pocket-parks, wi fi, and just about anything else that they’ve seen work in other cities. 

The design team will come up with some different looks and then begin the process of sharing, soliciting input, and modifying to find a look and feel customized for Kent.  The goal is to start construction next year so I’d expect the design process to be in full gear through the summer and fall.

While we don’t know yet what the customized Kent look will be, we do know that the Esplanade extension will pick up at the edge of campus on Lincoln Street and head west down what today is the Erie Street corridor.  The street will be vacated and converted into a linear park like setting, ending at a new signature KSU gateway and great lawn area adjacent to SR 59. 

After soaking in the collegiate sites and sounds of the great lawn area, our walkers will then cross-over SR 59 (at the shiny new intersection) where upon those walkers will then find themselves in the middle of a new hotel & conference center to their left and the new PARTA multi-modal building on their right that will also happen to include a great row of retail stores to tempt their credit cards.   

If our walker doesn’t like those options, they can head west for one block and find themselves standing betweeen two great new dining options:  a new Brico’s restaurant to their left and the new Liziza restaurant and Oak Room on their right.  Another 50 feet or so west will put them at the cross-road where Acron Alley has a dramatic entrance on their right (with access to even more shops and an open plaza) or they can enjoy Aladdin’s restaurant and an outdoor plaza to their left as the alley concept jumps across the street and opens into a welcoming outdoor seating area that will include programmed events.    

With a bit more westernly walking our walkers will see Ametek employees waving from the second story of the buildings to their left while they look through the storefront windows of even more dining and retail options on the ground floor.  Similarly, the right side of the street will bring an enjoyable mix of more mom and pop stores, including a new coffee house that when walking isn’t an option includes drive thru service. 

Arriving at Water Street, our walkers will be lured south by the signature new Davey Tree building at the corner of SR 43 and SR 59, or they can head north into the heart of downtown Kent’s shopping district, or even further west into Kent’s entertainment district.

Roughly 1/2 of a mile from the edge of campus, our walkers will be drawn in by the sites and sounds of the historic train station that has become the local favorite, Pufferbelly restaurant.  If all goes as hoped, public art around the renovated train station will punctuate the end of our official Esplanade walk but well fed walkers need not stop there. 

A short stroll over the historic Main Street bridge will take our walkers to the Kent Dam and with direct access to the Cuyahoga river trail network. With miles of trail connections heading east or west from the downtown trail hub, our walkers will not be disappointed as they are joined by fisherman, artists, visitors and kayakers that consider Kent’s stretch of river one of the best kept secrets in town — and with canoe and kayak rentals available a couple of hundred yards downstream at Tannery Park our walkers can give their feet a rest and enjoy the river up close and personal. 

Our if our walkers are an ambituous lot, they can grab their bikes and ride the Kent hike and bike trail all the way to downtown Akron or even Cleveland if they were so inspired. 

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All of this brought to you compliments of our humble Esplanade. 

True Partners...

We had our weekly downtown projects meeting yesterday and all our partners — Kent State University, PARTA, Fairmount, and Pizzuti — shared updates on the progress of the respective moving parts that in 9 to 18 months will have to seamlessly come together. 

A daunting task to say the least, but the meetings keep us on track, and they double as problem solving and group therapy sessions that re-charge us for another week of project surprises and hiccups. 

For me, the weekly team meetings have re-affirmed the notion that there’s strength in numbers — whether it’s tapping into the group’s cumulative brain-power to find work-around solutions for a seemingly insurmountable problem or sharing a mini-celebration moment when another milestone is passed on the journey.  Progress seems more likely to follow whenever we plan, think, talk, argue and cheer together. 

These days everyone touts some partnership or other — which in concept is great — but in reality a lot of the collaboration talk seems long on words and thin on real comittment.   There’s good reason for that.  Genuine partnerships only work when everyone has skin in the game and everyone is willing to put the partnership ahead of the individual partners.  That’s a price tag that most people aren’t willing to pay. 

Folks will nod their heads and sign agreements to create partnerships but few really put their money where their mouth is.  Rare is the partner that says I’m willing to pay more, even though I’ll get less than what I wanted, for the benefit of all of us.  That’s the true test of a partnership.  And that’s the test that the downtown project has passed with flying colors.  

For the downtown project, there’s been check points along the way where one partner or another could have dug their feet in and took a stand for their own gain but time and time again, I’ve been surprised by how committed this team is to the partnership.  I think it’s a credit to the character of the people representing each organization and it’s also a function of the project itself — we all understand that there is no project for any one of us, without all of us, period. 

Once you realize that, it makes the decision points easier to navigate on behalf of the team. 

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Besides the 150 or so new employees from Davey Tree and Ametek that will be in the office space of the project, Fairmount recently shared a list of the retail tenants that have already signed-on to the project:

 And here’s a look at where those stores would go from the latest version of the base site plan for the mixed-use and hotel/conference center blocks:

Fairchild Bridge TEMPORARY Closure...

Given the high traffic volumes that use the Fairchild/Crain Avenue bridge we knew from the start that the key to success of the project would not just be ending up with a shiny new bridge, it would also be how we got the shiny new bridge in place, which is why we made a commitment to do everything we could to minimize the traffic disruption.  

Easier said than done on the largest bridge project in the history of Portage County.   

There’s no doubt that traffic has been impacted during construction as lanes have been shifted, reduced and moved around over the last 12 months of the project, but hang on to your hat because starting Wednesday, July 20th and running through Monday July 25th the bridge will be closed. 

C-L-O-S-E-D…as in no traffic at all…as in how the heck do I get across the Cuyahoga River to head north out of town?

The best answer is to just stay and shop and eat in Kent this week and forget heading north but if that’s not a realistic option you’ll have to use the Haymaker Parkway bridge to access State Route 43.  It’s admittedly inconvenient but it’s probably less than a quarter mile out of way so hopefully for 5 days we will survive. 

The bridge closure really was an option of last resort.  Our City Engineer lives and breathes this project and after the first 12 months he knows exactly how frustrating the whole detouring thing can be for everyone, and the last thing he wants to do is to give everyone inspiration to call him up and share their insights into his latest decision on this project — but some decisions are unavoidable, so here we go.   

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In his defense, our City Engineer offers the following explanation for the bridge closure: 

During this closure the contractor will raise the upper tracks (A.B.C. Railroad) to its final elevation. Since the rail line crosses the existing bridge, the bridge must be closed during this work. A detour will be posted and emergency vehicle access to all areas will be maintained. Businesses along Lake Street that receive truck shipments have been coordinated with to allow them access without driving through residential neighborhoods.

The original plans called for incremental raising of the rail lines without shutting down the Crain Avenue Bridge. However, due to numerous factors including coordination with the railroads, underground utilities, hazardous materials and weather delays the method of raising the tracks required changing.

The raising of the tracks (approximately four feet) is required to open the new Fairchild Avenue Bridge, which is scheduled for this October.

Citizens Police Advisory Meeting...

After about a year of monthly meetings with a volunteer Citizens Police Advisory committee covering a wide range of public safety topics (home safety, lethal force, K9 crews, and more) , the Kent Police Department is starting off the second year with a presentation on their plans to offer a new Citizens Police Academy for interested Kent residents in 2011-12.  The Citizen’s meeting is set for July 12, 2011, in the Police Training room at 7:30 a.m.  Anyone is welcome to attend. 

Given the popularity of Police Academies in other communities, the concept of a Kent Police Academy has been talked about for some time, but to do it right meant finding resources to put towards it — and in these tight times, that took awhile.  But we think we’ve accumulated enough to give it a try.

Fortunately, last year we were successful in applying for grant funds to improve collaborative Police – Community relations and in addition to scheduing more neighborhood Policing and outreach, the Police staff revisited the concept of a Police Academy and they are putting the final touches on a 12 -week curriculum before rolling it out over the next couple of months.

July’s Citizen Police Advisory meeting is devoted to an open discussion of the elements of the Academy for public input.  The Police think they’ve got a good concept but they want to run it by City residents first since that’s the target audience. 

I’ve watched the Citizen Police Academy graduates earn their diplomas in each of the cities I’ve worked in and I’ve seen first-hand how popular they can be, so I am optimistic that Kent’s new program will be a success.  That success will depend on customizing the program to meet the Police and Kent residents expectations, so if you can join the planning meeting please do so. 

Here’s the meeting notice from Kent’s Public Safety Director: