Schools

Starbucks May Open in Kent State Library

University, coffee shop chain discussing project

A full-service Starbucks could be headed for the Kent State University Library.

Kent State Dining Services is in talks with the coffee store mega chain about opening one of their cafes inside Portage County's tallest building on the campus.

Jim Bracken, dean of library and media services at Kent State, said dining services will have final say on whether the Seattle company opens yet another of its branches in the university's main library.

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“We have advised dining services that we think it would be wonderful to have a larger presence with food service in this building," he said. "But it’s not our project.”

Richard Roldan, director of dining services at Kent State, said there is no timeline for the library Starbucks to open, and right now the project planning has slowed until they figure out where in the library the cafe will go.

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“Part of the problem in that library is there’s no restrooms (on the first floor)," Roldan said. "There’s a lot of challenges with the structure.”

Roldan said Starbucks has agreed to give the university a franchise license to open the cafe. The plans as they are now call for a full-service Starbucks similar to the one open at the corner of Lincoln and East Main streets.

Bracken said the idea of opening coffee shops in libraries is not new, and it's part of a larger national trend of changing the way communities perceive and interact with libraries — even the has a small cafe on the first floor.

“We want to make our libraries more comfortable," Bracken said. "Libraries are more than quiet research spaces. They no longer are simply storage houses for materials."


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