Best Hometowns 2022-23
The connection between campus and city makes this town a great place to call home
Athens Bellefontaine Kent Perrysburg Versailles
Dear Future Golden Flash, Congratulations – you’re in!
You have been admitted to Kent State University and are now a member of the Golden Flashes family, and we are thrilled to welcome you as a first-year student.
You will find that Kent State is indeed a place where you can make your home away from home. You are not only joining an engaging campus community, but you are moving to a vibrant city that was recently recognized by Ohio Magazine as a 2022-2023 Best Hometown – a great place to live, go to school, work and visit.
There are so many exciting things to do on and off campus that you won’t know where to start. Kent State is seamlessly connected to the city of Kent by a beautiful, walkable pathway called the Lefton Esplanade, which features many points of interest and beautiful gardens.
Downtown Kent offers interesting places to shop, delectable restaurants and a plethora of activities year-round, from kayaking on the nearby Cuyahoga River to ice skating in the winter.
You may choose to hike or take a leisurely nature walk in our nearby regional and national parks. Or if live music and theater are your thing, you can find both downtown or on campus.
For those who have never visited Kent State or who haven’t been here in a while, now is the time to visit. You will be pleasantly surprised at the wonderful changes that have taken place over the last few decades. Kent State and the city of Kent have become destination spots in the state of Ohio.
As a new member of the Flashes family, you hold a special place in our hearts. You belong here and we can’t wait to welcome you in person.
Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Todd Diacon President, Kent State University Jerry Fiala Mayor, Kent, Ohio
Franklin Mills
weekday morning in downtown Kent is anything but sleepy inside Over Easy at the Depot. Students and residents alike dig into morning favorites alongside railroad tracks that locomotives still frequent.
The restaurant space is full of ex posed brick, railroad relics and color ful chalkboard signs. Periodically, diners feel the rumble of a train passing by.
Built in 1875 as the Atlantic & Great Western Co. Rail road Depot and used for nearly a century, the Tuscan Revival-style structure was almost demolished before the Kent Historical Society purchased it in 1975. The place has been home to a few different restaurants over the last 40 years. The railroad-themed Pufferbelly Ltd. opened in 1981 and operated until the end of 2016. The upscale Ital ian restaurant Trento Ristorante followed in 2017, while Over Easy at the Depot arrived in late 2021.
The historic train station sits along Franklin Avenue, a brick-lined street that is also home to Ray’s Place (a pub that has become a landmark of its own over the years), as well as the hip, Mexican-inspired eatery Taco Tontos. Most of downtown Kent is arranged around Franklin, Water and Main streets, and it’s about a half-mile walk from one end of it to the other.
“Our whole downtown is like that: easy,” says Heather Malarcik, executive director of Main Street Kent, an or ganization that focuses on downtown beautification and revitalization. “It’s walkable.”
The relationship between college and community is strong here, thanks to a downtown design that connects campus and city, innovative collaborations and new development.
By Kelly Powell
The city of over 28,000 full-time residents was in corporated as a village in 1867 but reaches back to 1805 when Joseph Haymaker established his gristmill in the Ohio wilderness that surrounded a stretch of the Cuyahoga River. Kent State University was founded in 1910 and today has more than 25,000 students, which effectively doubles the city’s population between late Au gust and the middle of May.
Kent State University is the city’s largest employer with approximately 3,860 employees. Davey Tree Expert Co. is the city’s largest private employer. John Davey, who began studying trees while working at Rock Cemetery in Kent and taught others how to care for them, started the business in 1880. It is still headquartered in Kent and has more than 11,000 employees nationwide.
The university and city have long been joined together, but in 2013, that connection between campus and com munity was made stronger when local officials unveiled the Lester A. Lefton Esplanade. The pedestrian walkway extends across the Kent State University campus to the edge of downtown.
“The Esplanade, that connection, and even the look of downtown is all intended to be very seamless with campus,” says Kent city manager Dave Ruller. “It’s all meant to really emphasize the college-town feeling, flavor, personality.”
A pocket of downtown known as Acorn Alley opened its first building in 2009 and a second building in 2011. Construction of the esplanade followed. Acorn Alley sits about a two-minute walk from the end of the pathway. Its name is a nod to the city’s unique and beloved black squirrels (brought to the university in 1961 from Ontario, Canada, as part of an attempt to save the species from extinction) that have become an unoffi cial mascot of Kent State students. Acorn Alley’s assortment of small businesses in cludes student favorites such as The Fruit Stand and Twisted Meltz.
During winter 2021, the city, universi ty, Kent State Hotel and Conference Cen ter, Kent Area Chamber of Commerce and Main Street Kent collaborated to cre ate Kent Skates, an outdoor ice-skating rink along East Erie Street that was free and open to the public.
“It just exceeded every expectation,” says Dana Lawless-Andric, associate vice president at the Office of University En gagement & Outreach. “We’re really just [doing] whatever we need to do … to take care of each other, to uplift. I really feel like that’s the spirit.”
Such collaboration can be found throughout Kent. The Haymaker Farmers Market, under market manager Andrew Rome, sets up at the edge of Franklin Avenue every Saturday from April through November. In 2020, mayor Jerry Fiala and city manager Dave Ruller requested Franklin Avenue be blocked off as a Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area, complete with picnic tables that have turned the well-known street into a public gath ering place seven days a week from noon to 11 p.m. On summer evenings, the district is populated with students and residents alike, often enjoying food and drinks from Zephyr Pub, Taco Tontos and Ray’s Place. (Although the weather may not cooperate for outdoor seating yearround, DORA laws are in effect 365 days a year.)
Other new additions to the college town include Bell Tower Brewing, which opened in the former First Con gregational Church of Kent, and Battleground Taproom and Mexican Kitchen, an authentic Mexican restaurant in the city’s historic South End.
“Vibrant cities, vibrant downtowns are great for com merce,” explains Michelle Hartman, interim executive director of the Kent Area Chamber of Commerce, “but they’re even better for a sense of community, and we have that here.”
Despite the changes that have occurred downtown
Over Easy at the Depot opened in Kent’s historic train depot in 2021. It is popular with both full-time residents and Kent State University students.
over the years, those who last set foot in Kent a genera tion ago will still see names they recognize. Woodsy’s Mu sic has been selling instruments and offering lessons since 1972, while the Venice Cafe has been open since 1941. In 2002, a 642-seat theater built in 1927 was remade as the Kent Stage, which offers a slate of live performances by national touring acts.
“We definitely looked at the preservation piece of it first,” Hartman says of downtown. “We’ve blended the best of the old with the best of the new [and] brought them together.”
That mix is perhaps best encapsulated in Kent’s Mill District, a section of downtown that surrounds the histor ic Star of the West Flour Mill, established on North Water Street in 1879. The area, which is under ongoing revital ization efforts, is home to Scribbles Coffee Co. and Bent Tree Coffee Roasters as well as Kent Cycle and North Water Brewing Co.
“It feels ‘small town,’ it feels like your hometown, even when you’re a student,” Ruller says of Kent. “And that’s the goal. We’re always trying to strive to be a welcoming city, a friendly city.”
