City of Northport responds to Kentuck plan to relocate festival site for 2024

In response to news that the Kentuck Art Center had begun actively seeking a new location for its internationally renowned October arts festival, the city of Northport issued a statement.

In the written release to media, dated Nov. 29, it began "The City of Northport was saddened to hear that the Board of the Kentuck Art Center has determined to seek a new home for the Kentuck Art Festival (sic). Attorneys for both entities met the week before Thanksgiving in order to try and better understand the concerns of the other and to seek a resolution, and staff continued to discuss the Festival and its scheduling as late as the afternoon of Kentuck's announcement."

More: Kentuck seeks new home for world-renowned arts festival

Though Kentuck had planned to issue its own statement at 9 a.m. Nov. 30, word leaked out, media began calling, and the news rapidly spread the afternoon before. The Kentuck Festival of the Arts' roots date back to a 1971 heritage festival held in downtown Northport.

Under the guidance of people such as Georgine Clarke, Kentuck's original executive director, the festival expanded into a two-day celebration of traditional arts and crafts, with a wealth of outsider artists in its earlier years, and recently adding music, demonstrations, children's hands-on activities, a spoken word stage and more. It's been held in Kentuck Park since the beginning. The Oct. 14-15 festival was the 52nd.

At a Nov. 16 meeting specially called by the Kentuck board of directors, the 19-member group empowered Kentuck staff, working out of a pair of buildings it owns at 503 Main Ave. in Northport, to begin searching for a new location for the 2024 festival.

Kentuck Executive Director Amy Echols said the driving force was the Northport City Council's changed contract offer. For 2023, funding from the city was $80,000, with the park and city services offered on a one-year contract. The new offer was $68,000 per year funding, with a five-year contract stipulation, that the festival was to remain within Northport.

Northport sports complex

Complicating the picture is the city's sports complex project, north of and directly adjacent to the 7-acre Kentuck Park site. Construction could potentially affect future festivals, Kentuck said, and with no assurances from the city about the park's availability and access, the board chose to begin looking for a suitable alternate spot, somewhere within Tuscaloosa County.

In response to a constituent's question about the sports complex possibly affecting the Kentuck Festival, Christy Bobo, District 1 Northport city councilor and president pro tem, said she shared the concerns.

"As far as I have been informed, Kentuck Festival of the Arts has been guaranteed to be afforded the same footprint accommodations for 2024 as 2023, with additional help from city services as the help which our departments provided this year," Bobo wrote.

"The city added additional funding by way of monetary and in-kind contributions. Every accommodation has been offered (and was carried out for 2023) .... The footprint of the festival grounds has not changed.

"With any project there are growing pains to be expected and the intent of city leadership, has been to lock in the city's agreement to support Kentuck Festival with a mutually beneficial and continued agreement."

She added that the current plan for the sports complex, to include baseball and softball fields, does not overlap the festival grounds.

District 6 Northport councilor Jeff Hogg, chair of the city's sports and aquatics committee, shared images on social media for what's being named River Run Park at Northport Shore, the baseball and softball field component of the sports complex.

"Pre-design is now complete and we are very close to going to construction!" Hogg wrote.

Northport's release regarding Kentuck noted dates of communication between the city and Kentuck, and acknowledged a number of matters of discusssion.

The city's release said that the Northport City administrator sent a proposed contract Sept. 6, then followed with an email dated Sept. 14 with request for comments on the proposed contract. That day, a Kentuck attorney responded there would be comments regarding the proposed contract language, the city said.

Another email was sent to Kentuck on Sept. 21, the city said, regarding the cost of in-kind services provided. Echols acknowledged a close relationship between Kentuck and the city employees who've helped keep the festival running smoothly. This year, the city provided a new temporary Wi-Fi network, and performed a "clean up of the dirt and haul road for the sports plex preliminary work." The mounds were located to the north of the park, where artists' parking has been located in the past.

Comments and markups to the proposed agreement were received Oct. 24, the city said, and its attorneys began reviewing. City attorneys met with Kentuck's attorney and a board representative Nov. 16.

"With clarification of the issues as presented by Kentuck, attorneys for the City attempted to get additional information for Kentuck and continued to engage with Council members about the concerns of Kentuckup to, and including, November 28, 2023, with a pledge to get all issues resolved no later than December 11, 2023," the statement went on.

"It remains the hope of the City of Northport that Kentuck will continue to hold its festival at the traditional home of Kentuck Park within the City of Northport as we have never wavered from providing that space."

Northport City Attorney Ron Davis said he's been working to gather facts before the Northport City Council's next meeting, Dec. 11, based on Kentuck's concerns as expressed in their Nov. 16 meeting.

"I am meeting with our council individually to bring them up to date. However, a majority of them will make the decision about the issues raised by Kentuck to me at our November meeting with the board chairman and the Kentuck attorney at that time," Davis said.

Clarke expanded Kentuck's offices, originally in Northport City Hall, into the 503 Main Ave. building, which Kentuck later purchased, along with the adjacent former post office building, now named the Georgine Clarke Building. It rents the green space — an art-filled spot with benches and walkways, which it calls the Courtyard of Wonders — between buildings and studios on a monthly basis.

Grown around the success of the festival, a two-day event drawing 20,000, with an estimated $5 million economic impact, the Kentuck Art Center has become a year-around hive for working artists, with exhibit spaces, a gift shop, workshops and other outreach. It hosts the monthly Art Nights, held first Thursdays, and has been a force for other Northport events, such as Tuesday's Dickens Downtown, a Victorian-style celebration of the holidays.

Current plans are just about moving the festival, Echols said, not the downtown Northport center. Thus far, staff has identified about half a dozen potential locations, and will discuss those further at a specially called December board meeting.

Reach Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Northport 'saddened' to hear Kentuck's plan to relocate festival