Kent State's Lefton Commended for Strengthening City, Campus Relations
Students respond negatively on social media to president's retirement
by Matt Fredmonsky (originally published on Kent Patch)
The Kent and Kent State University community responded with mixed reaction to the news that President Lester Lefton will be retiring when his contract ends in July 2014.
Community and campus leaders praised Kent State's 11th president for his leadership in strengthening town-gown relations, yet students and others used the announcement to sharply criticize the 66-year-old Boston native on social media.
Town-Gown Renewal
"Lester’s got to be commended on what he brought to the table to help the city of Kent and the university as a whole get what we had to get done dowtown withour redevelopment," Kent Mayor Jerry Fiala said. "Lester had the personality to help Kent get done what we needed to get done."
Lefton came to Kent in 2006, at about the same time Kent City Manager Dave Ruller started his tenure as the city's top employee.
It didn't take long for the two out-of-towners to strike up a conversation about the city's potential for redevelopment.
As a redevelopment partner, Lefton and his administration worked with city leaders, county, state and federal officials to spur the more than $100 million redevelopment under way downtown.
Ruller credited Lefton with helping the community rediscover itself and renew its passion for Kent.
"He helped us see that it's not enough to have great ideas," Ruller said. "You've got to have the kind (of) energy and vision that can get people up out of their seats and rolling up their sleeves to turn ideas into actions.
"The results in Kent speak for themselves," Ruller said. "As we are busy cutting ribbons on projects that for decades were described as impossible."
The downtown redevelopment not only directly involves the university via the new Kent State Hotel and Conference Center, but the university also is working on the Esplanade pedestrian pathway that will directly link campus to downtown.
The more than $10 million project cut a wide swath through the neighborhood west of campus that links the hotel and redevelopment area directly to the Kent State Museum.
Set to open in 2015, after Lefton has left, will be the new Kent State College of Architecture and Environmental Design, a $40 million building that will stand on the Esplanade and symbolize the final link between the campus and university.
Douglas Steidl, dean of the architecture college, said he's hopeful Lefton will return when they cut the ribbon on the new state-of-the-art building.
"I think he had a vision when he came in of what he thought needed to be done," Steidl said. "Many of those things have been accomplished. And it’s going to improve even more over the next few years with the construction that’s going on."
Remaking the campus
Downtown isn't the only place seeing millions of dollars in new construction courtesy of Lefton's efforts.
The Kent campus is on the cusp of a more than $200 million renovation plan that includes new buildings for the architecture college and the College of Applied Engineering, Sustainability and Technology.
The renovation plan calls for utility and academic updates that will touch nearly every building on the main campus.
Lefton also pushed for the redesign of the Kent State Student Center Risman Plaza with the addition of the Student Green. And under his watch the site of the May 4, 1970 shootings landed on the National Register of Historic Places with the new May 4 Visitors Center museum to be dedicated next month.
“I am so proud of where our university is today, and our record-setting performances have exceeded even our own high expectations and captured regional, state and national attention,” Lefton said in an email message to university faculty, staff and students Wednesday morning. “Kent State is well-positioned for the future, and the academic and physical transformations we have begun – across our campuses and our home communities, most notably, in Kent – will pave the way for an even more exciting future."
In addition to the main campus, several of the regional campuses have seen expansive renovations or large, new construction projects. Perhaps the largest during Lefton's tenure, the Geauga campus opened the in Twinsburg.
Jane Murphy Timken, chair of the Kent State trustees board, called Lefton's seven years at Kent State transformational.
"President Lefton’s contributions to Kent State have been extraordinary,” Timken said. “He has been the right leader at the right time who has brought a new sense of purpose and pride in Kent State."
Students critical, faculty measured
While city and campus leaders praised the retiring president students took a decidedly sharper approach to the news.
Students flooded Twitter with celebratory comments over the news of Lefton's retirement.
"Maybe we will get a president who actually cares about his students more than the business," Sarah Jane wrote on the university's Facebook post announcing Lefton's retirement.
Enrollment numbers and fundraising dollars have risen steadily during Lefton's tenure, but so too has tuition and student fees.
"Which leads to a heavy financial burden for all who attend the university," Boris Rúdick Santillana wrote on the university's Facebook page. "He did all this while taking in a $104K bonus this year and a $102K bonus the previous year ... most of the improvements made were purely aesthetic."
Faculty members offered a more measured response to Lefton's retirement announcement.
Tracy Laux, a math lecturer on the Kent campus and former faculty union representative, said he suspects internal academic operations of the university will see little change with Lefton's eventual departure.
"I of course wish him well in his retirement," Laux said.
Steidl, the architecture dean, said Lefton did more than phsyically tie the university and community together but he also changed the way faculty and staff work towards campus-wide goals.
"That’s a cultural change, and it’s more challenging than the physical change," Steidl said. "I think he’s done a good job at it.
Bill Sledzik, an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said it seemed clear Lefton chose to focus on the fundraising and expansion efforts while letting his administrative staff manage the core academic operations.
"College presidents don’t seem to focus internally as much as they used to," he said. "They’re mostly focused on the outside raising money, doing things to promote the university. And I think Lefton’s done a good job with that.
"In my business, in public relations, that’s the sizzle and not the steak," Sledzik said.
He said he wants to see the university's 12th president focus more on academic goals than expansion projects.
"I think what we need to look at is what are we producing in terms of student outputs," Sledzik said. "Who are we admitting here? Are we raising the bar? Who are we putting out into the market place?"
Steubenville Rape Case Puts Spotlight on Teen Accepted to Kent State
University officials gathering information on high school student set to wrestle as a Golden Flash in fall 2013. Teen played for football team at center of rape case.
by Matt Fredmonsky (originally published on Kent Patch)
Kent State University is reviewing the status of an incoming freshman athlete because he was a member of the Steubenville, OH high school football team, two members of which have been charged in connection with a notorious rape case.
Kent State officials are closely watching the case, in which two Steubenville football players are set to go to trial next month on charges of raping a 16-year-old girl in August 2012.
Of interest to Kent State is whether the case expands to charges against other members of the Steubenville Big Red football team.
"This is a top priority," Kent State spokesman Eric Mansfield said by phone Sunday from Mobile, AL, where he is with members of the university's football team and Kent State Athletics staff for the Golden Flashes' appearance in the GoDaddy.com Bowl.
Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, two star players for the Stuebenville high football team, were charged in August with sexual assault, according to Steubenville city and police officials.
The New York Times reported that the charges stemmed from a night filled with parties attended by members of the football team at which the assault of the 16-year-old girl from West Virginia was witnessed — and captured in photos and video on cell phones — by other student athletes at Steubenville high.
Kent State officials posted a statement on the university's Facebook page Saturday following allegations made online about another Steubenville high school athlete who has been accepted to Kent State on a wrestling scholarship.
"University leaders are aware of the developing investigation in Steubenville, and we are gathering information from the proper authorities," the statement posted Saturday by Kent State officials said.
Mansfield said the university is now following the case in Steubenville closely to determine if some action should be taken regarding the student who has been accepted to Kent State.
"We understand the severity and the seriousness of the allegations, and as we collect more information we will take appropriate steps as warranted," he said. "We are now following the developments from Steubenville very closely."
The student whom Kent State officials are gathering information about is Charlie Keenan, a senior at Steubenville High School who has been a star athlete on the football field and wrestling mat.
Keenan has not been charged or identified as being directly involved by authorities investigating the sexual assault case.
Keenan won 40 matches in his junior year and was the first Steubenville wrestler to reach the state finals in 15 years, the Herald Star reported. Keenan played as a defensive tackle and center for the Big Red football team this past fall, according tothe team's website, and made several key plays for the team in 2012 high school football state playoff action.
The Herald Star reported in November that Keenan planned to wrestle in the 197-pound class for Kent State.
"I was going on some visits and I ended up going to Kent," Keenan told the Herald Star. "I stayed with their team, spent the night, and I really liked the campus. It just felt like a home for me. They have a really good wrestling program, and it was just the best fit for me to go to college there."
Keenan was offered a wrestling scholarship and signed a letter of intent to compete for Kent State. He is scheduled to start classes as a freshman in the fall. Mansfield said he was unsure when Kent State offered the scholarship.
Mansfield stressed that Keenan officially is not yet a student and is still considered an applicant by the university.
"We understand why people are so concerned," Mansfield said. "We take a case like this extremely seriously, and it is the top prority of the university right now to get as much information on this as possible.
"With all the growing media reports and the concern we’ve seen from the Kent State community on Facebook, we wanted to let them know we are taking it seriously and gathering information," Mansfield said.
Posters on the university's Facebook page, which included reposted inaccurate information about the case, urged the university to revoke the scholarship in light of Keenan's connection to the Steubenville football team.
"If the kid getting a scholarship was not photographed or video-taped being involved in this situation, but ... somehow otherwise is implicated, the courts should first determine the guilt of the individual student before the university decides on revoking any scholarship possibilities," one person wrote.
Others posting on Kent State's Facebook page threatened to transfer if the university did not take action.
"If he does keep his scholarship, I refuse to continue attending such a school that finds this (OK)," another person wrote.
ShopsClosing a Normal Part of Doing Business
Three eateries in downtown Kent closed this month
by Matt Fredmonsky (originally published on Kent Patch)
This week we learned three of Kent's newer eateries that opened as part of downtown's redevelopment were forced to close their doors.
The Dog Squad and Arctic Squirrel, a gourmet hot dog shop and ice cream parlor, closed their doors one week ago today. Soup joint Funky Ladles also shut down.
They're certainly not the first.
And they won't be the last.
Do you remember Vintage Rehab? The store sold gently used clothing and was one of the first tenants in the first phase of the Acorn Alley redevelopment. The store closed in 2010 after being open slightly more than a year.
The silver lining there is that Off the Wagon expanded by taking over the former clothier space.
Did you ever peruse the fabrics at Katie Brooke Quilt Shop? The sewing and knitting shop, another early tenant of Acorn Alley, closed in 2011 after being open less than two years.
Remember the Main Street Snack Shoppe? That short-lived, student-run business closed in Acorn Alley after a brief stint selling candy and munchies.
Did you ever sit in Dancing Beta and enjoy their sushi? That restaurant closed after slightly more than a year in business in Acorn Alley.
The redevelopment area isn't the only place where businesses are being shuttered.
Practically a landmark, Spin-More Records shut down, after spinning albums for 30 years in the Kent Stage building, to make way for a business that could pay higher rent: Jimmy John's.
Professor's Pub gave way to Stone Tavern. The Backerei folded into Baked in the Village Café. Ramella's Pizzeria is at least the fourth incarnation of a pizza joint in the building on Erie Street.
Who remembers Thompson's Drug?
For almost every business that fails there is a success story.
Laziza remains a popular place for a dinner date. And the restaurant's owners plan to take over the Funky Ladles space and turn it into more of a café.
Popped! is selling so much popcorn that they've expanded into second-floor space in Acorn Alley.
Pita Pit remains a favorite for a quick lunch or dinner among students and townies alike. Finding a table at Tree City Coffee some days is more of a challenge than finding a Republican in Kent.
Did I mention Off the Wagon?
And even newer places, like Bar 145 and Yogurt Vi, appear to be drawing a lot of foot traffic.
Don't forget about the stalwarts — the places that have endured much longer and gave downtown Kent it's charm: McKay Bricker Gallery, City Bank Antiques, Sue Nelson Designs and Franklin Square Deli.
Are we going to see more businesses close? Perhaps. Is the sky falling? Not yet.
I won't be overly concerned about businesses, many of which have been start-ups, failing as part of downtown's redevelopment until after the parking garage opens, the Kent State hotel is bedding guests, the old Kent hotel opens and the new 32-unit apartment building across from Acorn Alley becomes a home to 32 families.
Until then, keep calm and support your local businesses.
Restored Acorn Corner Opens to Public
Buffalo Wild Wings opened Monday on first floor of renovated old Kent hotel
by Matt Fredmonsky (originally published on Kent Patch)
Buffalo Wild Wings opened to the public for the first time Monday as the first tenant in the newly renovated Acorn Corner at the intersection of Main and DePeyster streets in downtown Kent.
The opening marks a milestone in the landmark building, where the upper floors have been vacant and condemned for nearly 40 years and the main floor has been empty and boarded up for more than a decade.
Monday also was the first time the public got the chance to see developer Ron Burbick deliver on his promise to restore the 1920s era structure after buying it from the city in November 2011.
A brief illness kept the developer from attending opening day for the restaurant, which boasts 55 TVs — including a 35 feet by 8 feet TV above the bar — and about 7,000 square feet of space between the main floor and mezzanine level.
Burbick said via email from his home in Florida Monday that much of the success in renovating the building should be credited to Robert and Matthew Pipoly, the father-and-son team that owns Kent's Buffalo Wild Wings.
"(They) have been major financial contributors to the overall success of the project," Burbick said. "Their early and continued support of the project has been steadfast throughout, and they have been a pleasure to work with — even when I had to tell them they couldn't have a giant gold buffalo on the roof."
More than a sports bar
Matthew Pipoly said his father was one of the earliest franchisees when he opened the Kent Buffalo Wild Wings, today a national chain with more than 1,000 locations that started about 20 years ago near Ohio State University.
Pipoly said they first started thinking about partnering with Burbick about two years ago as they approached the 20-year mark on their lease — March 2013 — for the sports bar's former locale on Franklin Avenue.
"When we got into that building, that was the prototype for Buffalo Wild Wings," he said.
The eatery's evolution towards higher ceilings, larger seating capacities and, of course, more TVs meant they had to find a new spot. Their former location, though successful, only had about 135 seats, a small kitchen and enough work for 35 to 40 employees.
"I knew that Ron was doing a lot of development in Kent," Pipoly said. "We originally looked at Fairmount Properties, but it just wasn’t a (good) fit for us. Basically we needed to find a building that suited us rather than a place we wanted to go. There’s not a lot of buildings in Kent that have 18-foot ceilings."
The expansion boosted seating numbers to 240, and as of opening day employment numbers doubled at Buffalo Wild Wings.
"We have more than 100 (employees) now," Pipoly said.
A design challenge
About 18 months ago Pipoly knew they wanted to be in the building, and that's when they sat down with Burbick to start hammering out lease details.
It wasn't until about four months later when architect Doug Fuller of Fuller Design Group knew things were final and they could start designing the space for the sports bar.
Fuller said his team started by sitting down with Pipoly to determine what they wanted and what requirements were set forth by the corporate headquarters for the restaurant chain.
The design process was complicated by the fact that they had to adhere to requirements set in stone by the Ohio Historical Society Preservation Office, which mandated certain design elements in order for the project to qualify for several million dollars in state and federal tax credits.
"We already had a certain, let’s say limit, on what we could do," Fuller said. "Because we only had a certain size footprint there."
All those restrictions left little wiggle room for decisions such as placement of the 35-foot TV.
"There was only one place it could go … where it could be seen by as many people as it could," Fuller said. "There’s no way it could go on the north wall or south wall. The only place we had was that west wall."
After that, putting the bar underneath the TV on the long west wall of the first-floor seemed the logical place, and the multiple seating rooms and staircase unfolded from there.
Pipoly said he couldn't be happier with the way the design turned out as a seamless blend of modern style and technology with a classic exterior.
"I knew this building was going to be really interesting when we got in here, but I did not have the vision that ... Fuller Design had," he said. "The vision that they had, and the creativity that they used to solve all the problems was just outstanding."
Upstairs plans
With the ground-floor restaurant open in Acorn Corner the attention turns now to the commercial and residential tenants soon to occupy the upper floors.
Michelle Hartman, vice president of The Burbick Companies, said the two tenants on the third floor, the Kent Area Chamber of Commerce and Marathon Financial Services, should be finished with their move into the building by the end of the month.
The four luxury apartments on the fourth and fifth floors should be available for viewing as early as the end of May.
The apartments will feature bamboo flooring in the main living space, carpeting in the bedrooms and tile in the kitchen and baths. Stainless steel appliances and stacked washers and dryers will all come standard in the units, Hartman said.
"Ron mentioned he was putting a flat-screen (TV) in each unit," she said laughing. "I’m not sure about that one yet, but that’s what he said."
The apartments range in size from about 1,000 square feet to 1,500 square feet.
A quick rebirth
Even though the building languished for years its restoration came relatively quickly.
Fuller said the 14- or 15-month design time frame for Buffalo Wild Wings was aggressive.
"Given their needs, given the needs of getting a review for the tax credits on it, yeah I think it’s record speed," he said. "I don’t know if it is record speed, but I know down at the preservation office they kind of shook their heads when we told them what we were trying to accomplish. For a preservation project, in an old building that we had to do structural testing on … yeah, it was very fast."
Hartman said originally Burbick wanted to see the building open before the end of 2012.
She credits much of the pace to Metis Construction Services, the primary contractor for the restoration.
"These guys have been great to work with," Hartman said.
Marcel Clopton, the assistant project manager for Metis, said at the height of construction on the building 70 workers were inside toiling on the structure.
The construction firm only had a six-month window from start of internal construction to Monday's opening of the restaurant.
Clopton said the firm was able to include small details that preserve the historic character of the building. The base board molding on all the internal, exterior walls is the original design that would have been found in the building when it opened in the 1920s — the same goes for the window sills. And all of the window frames are original.
More to come
The building opened with little fanfare but big lunch and dinner crowds Monday.
And there's more to come.
The last piece of the building is the basement, which existing plans show a wine and jazz bar occupying.
Not all of the exterior signs are hung yet. And small details, including the historical marker, haven't been affixed to the brick facade.
Fuller said that with the restoration nearly fully finished it's enough for Kent residents to see what the building's future holds.
"I just think it’s an incredibly important thing for towns like Kent to preserve their heritage when they make these huge new moves forward," he said. "To have lost the building would have been a huge loss. I think the fact that preservation is part of Kent’s future is very important."
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