Downtown Entertainment District gets OK from Kent Council

Four new liquor permits could be coming to downtown Kent so four new restaurants can sell liquor with their food.

voted unanimously Wednesday to create encompassing the city's redevelopment block downtown. The vote came during a committee meeting and requires a final vote later this month.

The 20-acre district, per Ohio Revised Code, allows Kent to create four new permits that are only applicable to the district, which is bordered by Haymaker Parkway, Franklin Avenue, East Main Street and includes a portion of the Esplanade acreage.

Kent Economic Development Director Dan Smith said establishing the district was part of the city's negotiations with its development partner, Cleveland-based Fairmount Properties, since discussions started a few years ago.

"These are really heavily restaurant uses, so these aren’t just pubs," Smith said.

Smith said included Acorn Alley developer Ron Burbick, who said last spring he would need one of the four new permits for an Acorn Alley business. But Burbick has since said he won't need one of the only four new permits allowed by state law, so Fairmount Properties has asked for all four liquor permits.

Adam Branscomb, a development manager at Fairmount Properties, said they plan to restrict the permits to the restaurant permises within the redevelopment buildings.

"It’s critical to us that we control the use of these permits and that the restaurant operators meet the high expectations of the council, the community and the business establishment in downtown Kent," Branscomb said. "And those permits will be essentially tied to the premises. It’s a way of controlling those permits and keeping them in the family, so to speak."

The permits cannot be resold or used outside the district, but if a restaurant leaves and a new business comes in that doesn't need the permit they could eventually become available to the general public for another business within the district.

Several of the restaurants planning to open in the redevelopment project that will use the liquor permits include Panini's Bar and Grill, Newdle Bar, Bricco and Dave's Cosmic Subs, according to city documents.

Smith said council could, in the future, expand the district to create more permits. A minimum five acres is needed for one additional permit.

"These aren’t transferrable outside the district," he said.