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There’s a couple factors at work.

The City Council renewed the area’s entertainment district license recently with one new requirement: All applications for licenses or permits for special events must come through the property owners, not the individual businesses.

And the property owners have hired a Denver-based consultant to help them figure out how the entertainment district can better serve both the community and businesses — including whether to close Canopy Street from R to Q Street.

Both are an attempt to improve the operation of the entertainment district — which includes The Railyard and surrounding businesses just south of Pinnacle Bank Arena.

The consultant will advise the city and two limited liability companies that own the entertainment district property how to better use the space, while changes to the license agreement are aimed at streamlining the application process for special events and promoting better collaboration between businesses.

Lincoln City Councilman Bennie Shobe said during the March 4 council meeting that city officials hope for a better experience with the entertainment district moving forward.

“The idea of The Railyard is great. We want an open, family-friendly venue. We don’t think we’ve achieved that yet,� Shobe said in an interview last week. “We hope this new contract will get us there or at least get us closer.�

Hiring Civitas, the consultant, is also a move in that direction. The idea began with the Downtown Lincoln Association, which had worked with the company on the 2018 downtown master plan.

The idea of closing that block of Canopy Street near The Railyard has been floating around for awhile, and Downtown Lincoln Association President and CEO Todd Ogden said Civitas — which renovated the iconic Larimer Square in Denver — was intrigued with the entertainment district space and felt it held lots of potential.

So Ogden reached out to someone he’d worked with there, who came to Lincoln — and WRK Real Estate hired them.

WRK and Chief Industries are partners in the limited liability companies that own the property in the entertainment district including The Railyard.

Greg Frayser, general counsel and chief operating officer for WRK LLC, said he hopes Civitas can help them achieve their vision for the entertainment district.

“I’d say they’re reimagining how we use it to best serve businesses and the community,� he said.

Ogden said his goal is to find a way to create space for more community activities, while balancing those with business and retail needs. For example, there’s little shade in The Railyard for community activities, he said. Adding that would create a better space for community activities, and closing Canopy Street could provide space for activities like sand volleyball, ice skating, pickleball and basketball.

Eric Marsh, who owns Longwell's in The Railyard, said closing Canopy Street is vital, especially since the process for closing a city street for a special event is time-consuming and difficult.

"Winning cures everything," he said. "Closing the street is winning."

Civitas has a broader experience with such ideas and how — or whether — they’ll work, Ogden said.

Both Brandon Akert, who owns Gate 25 in The Railyard, and Marsh thought having someone outside look at the entertainment district was helpful.

The City Council also wants to see better collaboration between businesses that ask the council for licenses and permits for special events, especially following protracted hearings before the City Council last summer.

In preparation for Nebraska football game days and the women’s volleyball event at Memorial Stadium — big days for businesses in the area — individual businesses brought numerous applications before the board, and there were disputes between property owners about which businesses could sell alcohol within the confines of The Railyard.

City Councilwoman Sändra Washington said the council was frustrated both at the timing of some of the applications and the sheer number of individual applications, often for the same weekend.

"For us, it illustrated a problem with communication and collaboration, both things we thought critical components to the success of the entertainment district," she said.

In one case, Longwell’s Marsh ultimately withdrew an application that would have allowed him to dump 40 tons of sand on Canopy Street to create sand volleyball courts when he and the city couldn’t work out all the details.

And one hearing lasted more than an hour when Marsh appealed to the council to deny a special permit to Hiro 88 to sell alcohol from the public market in The Railyard.

He argued that because Hiro 88 wasn’t in The Railyard, it shouldn’t benefit from alcohol sales there during the busiest days, when the tenants make the lion’s share of their money. Hiro 88 owners argued they were a part of the entertainment district, which allowed them to apply for the special license to sell out of the public market.

In the end, the city approved the special designated license for Hiro 88. A lawsuit filed by Longwell’s against Hiro 88 over the same issue a year earlier is pending.

Until about five years ago, businesses did coordinate their applications, said Frayser.

Prior to that, the company hired four different event coordinators to oversee the area. The pandemic — when businesses applied for special licenses to be able to serve customers outside — was among factors that complicated coordinating applications, Frayser said.

Akert said he thinks having one entity handle the applications is a good idea. It will create a unanimous front and show the council the district has a plan and nothing is being done at the last minute.

“There’s too much paperwork the way it is,� he said. “We don’t need to compound it by four.�

But Marsh said it adds another layer of requirements — getting the property owners' approval — that other businesses outside the entertainment district aren't required to follow. 

Entertainment district businesses are also expected to agree on applying for licenses for special events — called special designated licenses or SDLs — when other businesses don't require the OK of their neighbors, Marsh said.

The district has had very few SDLs granted over the years. In part because many of the other businesses don't sign onto the applications he's made, Marsh said.

And even in the cases when the council does approve them they often still don't happen because the requirements for off-duty police to sign up as security aren't met.

Marsh thinks the process should be easier. 

"Having SDLs during our biggest events should be an absolute given," he said. "If those became easy, or easier, there could be more focus on events (that are) not game day- or concert-driven."

The issue of Railyard security also came up last week during a Nebraska Liquor Control Commission hearing.

The commission found Longwell’s guilty of allowing alcohol to be carried from its premises Nov. 24, when a Lincoln police officer confronted a man in the Haymarket who had left the bar with a branded cup of rum and Sprite in hand.

During the hearing, Marsh lamented what he said was the impossible task of monitoring The Railyard’s exits on a Husker football game day, which he indicated is made harder by his landlord’s own rules.

He said Longwell’s is responsible for monitoring exits that let out directly from the bar’s property to the surrounding Haymarket streets but said security personnel employed by the property owners man the exits from the broader Railyard common space, which he's prohibited from doing.

Bruce Bailey, the commission’s chairman, suggested “there may be just too damn many openings there to guard� and indicated the commission would seek a meeting with city officials.

Frayser said he didn’t see the security issue as a systemic problem, and Washington and Shobe said they've not been made aware of significant security problems at The Railyard.

Marsh’s appearance before the commission on March 5 marked the latest of several violations and warnings for Longwell’s dating back to 2014.

Shobe said Longwell's has dealt with such issues more than other businesses in the area.

"We appreciate their trying to help us grow The Railyard but we have some concerns about how we get there," he said.

Marsh said it's a function of the business he's generating.

"I'm not going to apologize for being Lincoln's busiest bar on gamedays."