Lincoln, College Homeowners Among Few Not Bought Out by Kent State

Iris Meltzer loves her house — just like her neighbor, Judy Smith, loves hers.

What they don't have in common is a desire to sell their land to .

Smith owns two properties right across from Franklin Hall at 226 and 230 S. Lincoln St. Her mother, Dorothy Myers, owns two more at 308 S. Lincoln St. and 428 East College Ave. The houses have been in their family for two generations. Smith grew up in the houses her mother owns before she bought the house she lives in now 35 years ago.

Meltzer bought her home, built in 1910 at 419 College Ave., in 1985 and owns it free and clear.

Both have watched as around them. Since 2007, in the neighborhood. Many of those properties have since been demolished.

"The rattle-trap student rental absentee landlord (houses), doesn’t bother me a bit to see them come down," Smith said. "Because then the trashy houses are gone. When I grew up here, these were all single-family residences."

The university has slowly been buying up property so it can extend The Esplanade — the on-campus leg of The Portage Hike and Bike Trail — through the neighborhood and into downtown Kent, where it will connect with the new and at Haymaker Parkway.

In the past, the university has not made public which properties it plans to buy. The properties bought by Kent State typically aren't public until the university's board of trustees votes to approve the purchases.

"I don't really want to speculate about what we might or might not be buying in the future," Kent State University President Lester Lefton said in March. "The university continues to acquire properties that it thinks will be beneficial to our overall campus plan and the downtown development."

That's one thing about the university's approach Meltzer wishes would change, even though she's confident in her decision to not sell.

"This is a few of us living in a few houses," she said. "So it’s not that I think they shouldn’t be buying up the properties and making connections, expanding the Esplanade, but I think that they ought to be communicating.

"I wish they would send me a letter," Meltzer said. "Invite us to coffee ... and say ‘These are our plans. These are our thoughts.'"

Meltzer said she's only heard from someone at Kent State once about whether she was interested in selling in a brief phone call. No offers have been made for her property.

In Smith's case, an offer had been on the table to buy her two properties last year under a life estate. Under the agreement, the university would have paid for the land and let Smith live there until her death. The deal was pulled from the university trustees' agenda and not acted on.

Two months ago, Smith said she offered to shorten the agreement to a 15-year deal instead of the life estate.

"I’ll be 76 at that time, and I’ll bail and go do something else with my life," she said. "And that was the last thing I’ve heard. So I’m patiently waiting."

Smith's desire to hold on to the house a little longer comes after she spent $90,000 in 2007 remodeling the first floor, replacing the siding, installing new insulation, adding a bath, upgrading the kitchen, replacing the windows and doing some repair work on the second floor. She owns both her properties, but she does have debt from the remodel.

And Smith rents. But she's not your typical landlord. She cooks meals for the students who live in her houses, and she keeps strict rules for behavior.

"My kids are family," Smith said. "And they tend to like living here because it is more of a family kind of thing."

In return, the income from her renters pays the bills. She also maintains a typing and quilting business in her home that helps balance her checkbook.

Smith said she'd be foolish not to consider selling to Kent State. The appraisals conducted by both parties put the value for her two houses and her mother's properties combined right around $1 million.

"I’m not going to sell this thing outright," she said. "It would make my life very easy, much easier if I sold and ... continued to live here and do everything that I’m doing. It’s more of a struggle now if I don’t sell it, but I’m also not going to sell it because … I could not replace what I have for the amount of money they’re offering."

Meltzer has invested in her home as well. She's remodeled the kitchen and upstairs bath. She's painted about every room and replaced the coal burner turned furnace with a modern unit. And she's taken meticulous care of the original oak floors and two stained glass windows.

But she's adamant about not selling for other reasons.

She grew up in Mount Pleasant, MI, which is home to Central Michigan where both her parents were faculty members. Meltzer has three degrees. She believes deeply in learning. And at 61, she's arguably quite progressive — you can see her tooling around Kent in a Toyota Prius.

"It’s real hard not to be pro-university," she said. "And I value education so highly. The notion of public universities is so important to who I am."

Her mother died recently, and her husband died unexpectedly in June 2010.

"Even thinking about changing my living situation would be one more stress I’m not willing to undertake at this point," Meltzer said. "For right now, I’m where I want to be in the space I want to be in."

Smith's deal with the university unofficially expires June 11 when the appraisals for her properties expire. If an agreement is not reached by then, both parties would have to start all over and pay for new appraisals.

The Kent State trustees meet June 2. The meeting agenda has not yet been posted.

"I’d be silly not to take up that offer," Smith said. "I like where I live, even though I have the crazy college street parties at the end of the year that I have to deal with. But I still survive with it. And I will continue to."