Kentuck, Northport At Odds Over Future Site Of Kentuck Arts Festival

NORTHPORT, AL — Organizers of the Kentuck Festival of the Arts are expressing concerns that the decades-old tradition could soon be coming to an end at its current location following disagreements with the City of Northport regarding the longtime site of the beloved event.

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Officials with Kentuck Art Center told Patch on Wednesday that its 19-member Board of Directors on Nov. 16 instructed the organization’s staff to begin the process of finding a new home for upcoming festivals, which comes after Kentuck Art Center failed to reach an agreement with the city on the future location of the annual Kentuck Festival of the Arts.

The news also comes the day after Tuscaloosa Patch reported that architects handling the nearby River Run Park presented the final designs to the Northport City Council Tuesday night. What's more, it comes on the heels of a contentious budget cycle

To explain, Kentuck Board of Director President Bobby Bragg and Executive Director Amy Echols said city officials have not responded to the organization’s attempts to finalize plans for future festivals at Kentuck Park's longtime 5th Street location.

Indeed, Kentuck officials said talks between Kentuck and city leaders began breaking down when the city moved to change the terms of the agreement to include decreasing the funding provided by the city, along with an attempt to change the agreement from one year to five years.

This has led festival organizers to begin searching for alternate sites, they said, going so far as to identify roughly half a dozen potential locations in Tuscaloosa County.

“It is regrettable that a few city leaders have put us in this position,” Bragg said. “Kentuck and Northport have enjoyed a mutually beneficial partnership, but now we’re forced to look at relocating an event that has grown significantly over the years.

“While the city wanted a five-year agreement, it was unwilling to guarantee that we could continue to hold the festival at Kentuck Park for the duration of the agreement, and they were uncommunicative on how the construction would impact the festival during that time,” Bragg added. “The city wanted us to sign a contract with less funding and no certainty on where future festivals were to be held.”

Echols went on to say that the organization normally would already have announced plans for the 2024 festival in the days following the close of the 2023 festival, which was held in mid-October.

She then said the City of Northport's funding agreement in question for Kentuck reaches well beyond the festival and also includes all of the programs that the organization conducts year-round in the city.

“We are not happy about the idea of having to move the festival," Echols said. "Kentuck Park has been its home for so long it is part of the fabric of Northport. We are extremely grateful for the city employees, from Public Works to Public Safety, that we’ve formed relationships with over the years. They are like family to us. It is unfortunate we have been forced into this position, but if we want to have a Kentuck Festival of the Arts in 2024, we must start planning now."

Echols was quick to point out that the Kentuck Festival of the Arts draws up to 20,000 visitors to the city each year, resulting in an estimated $5 million economic impact.

Northport City Attorney Ron Davis, in response to the accusations, told Patch that he met with Kentuck's attorney and a representative of the board a few days ago to discuss the aforementioned concerns, going on to say that officials have been discussing options to meet the needs of both Kentuck and the City of Northport with regards to the site of the annual festival.

Davis then said he informed Kentuck officials that the next regular meeting of the City Council would be on Monday, Dec. 11, which would then allow for officials to air their grievances in the public forum instead of the court of public opinion.

"I understood from their attorney that they had scheduled a Board meeting on December the 12th to determine if our response is acceptable to the Board," Davis said. "I have been working to make this happen so your statements below are not what I was told. I think the biggest problem is communication. I have offered to serve as a conduit between the city and Kentuck. I even spoke to [District 3 Councilman Karl Wiggins] about working with me on this last night and he agreed. This way any comments would be by both staff and the council."

Still, Davis said one of the biggest concerns expressed to him revolves around the footprint of the park, with the city attorney saying he has determined that Kentuck can have the exact same site next year as they had this year — something he said was requested by Kentuck leadership.

This comes after architects and engineers for the River Run Park project expressed the city's desire to not "cannibalize" nearby park space for the new facility currently being developed during the presentation made during Tuesday night's meeting.

To elaborate, Davis said one parking area north of Kentuck Park is a holding area for soil for the construction of the new nine-field River Run Park currently under construction.

"Northport and Kentuck were able to successfully work with this issue this year," Davis said. "It will still be there in 2024 but the footprint will not be any larger and, by the 2024 festival, it will be covered in grass. This is less parking for a couple of years but this pile of dirt also saved Northport $1.6 million dollars for our taxpayers."

Davis then said he has determined that the traditional location of the Kentuck Festival of the Arts should remain unchanged in the future and, despite having slightly less parking now, the improvements in place will greatly improve parking for the Kentuck Festival in the future.

"The city wants the Kentuck Festival to remain in Northport, as it has been for over 50 years," Davis said. "However, if they are determined to move, we can not make them stay in Northport. What we can do is guarantee them the exact same site with the exact same parking as they had this year. We can guarantee them the same level of public works, IT, police and other city services that we do each year — and I was told we did extremely well this year — and also give them financial support as we do other outside agencies."

Davis then went on to say that if Kentuck wants to move the festival, there is little the city can do but did say the reason was not that any demands made by the city were unreasonable.

"We just need to sit down like reasonable people," Davis said. "If the 2023 festival was successful— it was — It can be exactly as successful next year so there is no reason for any hasty decisions that end a 50-plus-year relationship."

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