Deans of Development

In 2011, at Kent State's annual Bowman Breakfast, Kent City Manager David Ruller praised the university's president, Lester Lefton: Kent State success. Community success. Coincidence? I think not...He's taught us that it's not enough to have great ideas, 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 help turn ideas into actions. That's leadership."

Such visionary leadership is not only occurring in Kent. Throughout Northeast Ohio, the heads of city government are discovering compatibility and partners with university administrators. Combining forces has created an irreversible impact on the cities, towns and villages that house the schools led by seers such as Lefton.

Those who earned a degree from one of these colleges or universities and haven’t visited their alma mater in the past 10 years should schedule a visit soon. There are sure to be some surprises. Among the notable changes are new places to shop, eat and sleep. There are also renovated stadiums and innovative partnerships for cultural events. Business leaders are holding events in state-of-the-art facilities.

Today, colleges and towns are working together to create new opportunities for residents, students and faculty, as well as industry and commerce, and in an America that continues to have sluggish growth in its economy, especially in a place as hard-hit as the Rust Belt, one has reason to smile.

Even if it is a puzzling smile.

City leaders and university administrators working together? Though their values and priorities have traditionally been separate and distinct, it appears that those once secluded in the ivory tower and the elected members of city hall have found that working together is the best solution to the complications of managing affairs in the 21^st century.

This relationship has been years in the making. Many universities in Northeast Ohio, and indeed, all of the United States, began in the late 1800s as land grant colleges. Their efforts were to advise the federal government on issues of agriculture and business. With their campuses established, they joined the ranks of private institutions of higher learning around the country by becoming “engaged” universities, responsible only to the goals of academic discovery, education and achievement. In most cases, they retained the roles and rights of nonprofits. Partnerships with cities were often established in lieu of taxes, further evidence that the affairs of the city and the college were notably separate. More obviously at a certain geographical point, the campus ended and the city began.

Throughout the 20^th century, towns and cities grew, filling in the land around the city center and the edge of campus. After World War II, colleges experienced a flux of new students due to, in part, the introduction of the GI Bill and had to expand. Using the resources at their disposal, colleges in the 1960s and 1970s built and developed properties on their own terms, often distancing and discouraging residents and city officials.

According to Roger K. Lewis, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, campus history is a major player in city and college relationships. “Residents of college towns, especially people who live near a campus, view higher-education institutions as 800-pound gorillas. Love-hate relationships are typical,” he says.

“On one hand, a campus can provide business and jobs for the community and be a source of hometown athletic and intellectual pride. On the other hand, citizens always complain about adverse off-campus effects: disruptive student behavior, the sometimes-seedy quality of student-oriented retail and entertainment destinations, higher residential rental rates because of student demand, student competition for on-street parking and traffic congestion.”

The ways in which colleges and the towns that host them benefit from and fail to understand each other are complex. And although town and college relationships have not always been ideal, for years, they’ve coexisted in their separate roles.

With the lessening impact of the steel industry on the region and the closing of many factories and businesses, the cities in Northeast Ohio that contain these institutions began to suffer. In addition, many more Americans turned to higher education to prepare for occupations in lieu of blue collar jobs once available without a college degree. With a spike in enrollment, it’s become necessary for schools to find ways to develop to meet the demand.

Current economic circumstances have made it more beneficial for city leaders to listen to and seek partnerships with university administrators. Cities that were self-sustaining and flourishing in the ’60s and ’70s are now facing stagnation, deterioration and decline.

Also, as Lewis points out, colleges and universities have a lot of the same planning and fiscal issues in common with cities and towns, making them especially prepared to face the demands of partnering with city leaders.

“In fact, managing the evolution of a campus is akin to managing the growth and redevelopment of a town or city. Like communities, campuses face intense growth pressures, traffic congestion, deteriorating infrastructure, aging and obsolete buildings, inadequate housing, limited land and loss of valuable open space, environmental degradation and uncoordinated construction,” Lewis says. “Providing reliable security has become just as vexing on campuses as it has in cities. Furthermore, tight operating budgets and rising costs can result in the deferred maintenance of many structures.”

To avoid mistakes, current partnerships have sought the opinions of outside experts and have formed alliances with local lenders and developers.

In Akron, for example, city and university partnerships have facilitated the building of InfoCision Stadium, involving some $61 million used to demolish and build a structure that required the help of 25 area contractors and a Cleveland-based design firm. The next project in Akron is the multi-faceted University Park Alliance — which will create a unified and redeveloped cityscape of 1,000 acres, connecting the north, east and south parts of the city with The University of Akron. There are also designs to bring the downtown and campus together using additional avenues for transportation. Currently, leaders have outlined four districts within the alliance, and The Center for Nonprofit Excellence has held meetings to try to bring the organization’s views in line with the wishes of the public.

The City of Youngstown is working closely with its residents and Youngstown State University on a planning effort titled, “Youngstown 2010.” This proposal promotes a Youngstown that, according to the city’s website, “is smaller, greener, cleaner, makes efficient use of its available resources and capitalizes on its many cultural amenities and business advantages.”

Even a small community in Portage County is getting in on the excitement. Hiram College and the village of Hiram, with a population hovering around 1,300, have partnered with The Ohio State University to find ways to develop while protecting farmland. Though they’re still working on the details of a plan necessary for the annexation of properties, recently a section of Hinsdale Street was dedicated near campus. It’s the first additional roadway in the village in over 40 years.

“[The Hinsdale Street addition] is an important improvement for the village,” said Hiram Mayor Lou Bertrand at the time of its opening. “The future of the village and all its citizens depends on the cooperation with the college, and this improvement is a step bringing development in the future.”

Though projects are moving forward in all of these communities, growth and change appears most sweeping in Kent. Over the past few years, the coinciding tenures of Ruller and Lefton seem to have created a strong bond and shared vision. This has allowed these leaders to make a project called “Campus Link” — which connects Kent State’s once-isolated land grant campus with downtown — into a reality.

The progress has succeeded to the extent that the project has traded its name for the more alliterative “Esplanade Expansion.” The new name will surely fall away as well, forgotten in the next few years as the joining between the university’s campus and downtown is finished, becoming a regular part of getting around Kent.

The esplanade is not going to be the only new reality. Ron Burbick, a chief developer who is helping shape the downtown vision, told Main Street Kent, a nonprofit organization, that he envisions the city as a booming metropolis by 2015.

Such a prediction might have seemed farfetched just a few years ago, but now Kent appears to have become a key asset for investment from the private and public sectors. Burbick’s “Phoenix Project” has already brought retail, dining venues and parking. The creation of new office space and residential opportunities is on the way. This work is complemented by federal stimulus money directed from the U.S. Department of Transportation to the Portage Regional Transportation Authority (PARTA). PARTA will be moving downtown to a multi-modal transit center that will function as a hub for buses, bicycles and automobiles.

Construction of The Kent State University Hotel and Conference Center is a joint venture of The Kent State University Foundation; The Pizzuti Companies, a property managing and regional development group; a community funding organization called Finance Fund; and an economic growth driver, The Development Fund of the Western Reserve. At 90,000 square feet, the structure will house a Kent State University store, a 300-seat conference center, a large lecture room and 110 hotel rooms. Plans indicate that this building will open next spring. 

The potential for forming both further alliances and physical structures in Kent has momentum, and although the thought of it may make preservationists cringe, Kent will never be the same. Its future wouldn’t exist without the help of Kent State University.

It appears certain that the current way cities and universities are working together will continue to evolve in the coming years. Right now, many communities are struggling to maintain their fiscal livelihoods, and coordinating city development with institutions of higher learning is a fantastic advantage. It allows communities to become more vibrant, putting them in the position to attract new residents and businesses while keeping the people and businesses they already have.

Some argue that this kind of partnership changes the definitions of “city” and “university.” Others say municipalities are leaning too heavily on the ivory tower, and this will cause them to lose their own identity and their ability to act independently.

In 20 years, some ask, will those returning to their alma maters be able to tell the “gown” from the “town” at all?