With the amount of new projects going on in the 3 C's right now, it's impossible to keep track of it all (heck, most of you can barely keep track of what's going on in your own back yard much less the other two C's!), so it's easy to forget that there's exciting stuff happening in Ohio's smaller cities too. Downtown Dayton has seen some phenomenal growth over the past couple of years, and 2017 is really shaping up to be a game-changing year for the city's central core. I've tried my best to document the projects that have either just finished up, are under construction, or should hopefully break ground this year below.

 

Let's start with a quick map of downtown, highlighting everything that's taking off here. Red blocks are proposed/about to break ground, orange blocks are under construction, and green blocks have wrapped up construction within the past year or so.

 

1.

 

2.

Let's start with the elephant in the room... the Arcade.

 

3.

The University of Dayton recently announced its plans to rehab the complex, but I haven't seen any timeline for this project yet. Supposedly it's underway though!

 

4.

Right now, I'm taking a "wait and see" approach.

 

5.

Everything in this photo is slated to be fixed up soon: from fore to back - the old Dayton Daily News building, Arcade Square, and the Centre City tower.

 

6.

This was slated to become apartments/dorms for Sinclair College but it fell through. The city cleaned up the lot to prep it for re-sale.

 

7.

The Dayton Grand Hotel, a block north of the DDN building, is supposedly undergoing renovations to be completed at the end of 2017, but I haven't seen any progress at all on this project.

 

8.

A little further up Ludlow is the new Hannah's Bar, which is the first proper bar to open up west of Courthouse Square.

 

9.

The 111 Building, near Hannah's, is soon going to be home to Taylor Communcations.

 

10.

Jumping back to the corner of Fourth and Main, we find Dave Hall Plaza, where the Levitt Pavilion is supposed to break ground soon. That's a good thing - this "park" right now is pretty useless and sketchy.

 

11.

The Centre City building is slated to become apartments/condos if they ever get their financing in order.

 

12.

Another angle on the Centre City building.

 

13.

One of the biggest projects currently underway is the $100m Fire Blocks District. A whole bunch of buildings along Third have been bought up and are in various stages of renovation. The brown building in the center is currently being converted to office space with ground level retail, and the red building will be apartments, with restaurants joining the Century Bar on the ground level.

 

14.

The new owners have kicked out most of the sketchy bars and porn shops that used to be in these buildings. There's plans to add retail and dining downstairs with residential up top, and hopefully a grocery store when the market conditions are right.

 

15.

Every building in this photo is owned by the Fire Blocks group. The metal facade should be coming off the Price building soon in preparation for its conversion into a hotel. I've got some renderings of the District I can post if folks are interested.

 

16.

This formerly-sketchy nightclub was bought by some flippers and fixed up last year and is currently sitting vacant at the corner of Fourth and St. Clair.

 

17.

A little further down are these new townhomes by Charlie Simms, who is also the developer behind...

 

18.

...these... houses? Fortresses? Abominations? The next time any of you from the 3 C's complain about bad infill, just remember that you don't have this monstrosity in your central business district.

 

19.

Simms also built these, which are a bit better, but still mostly just a box with a cornice. But hey, at least he sees the value in investing in downtown, and his projects seem to sell pretty well.

 

20.

They're right near the Second Street Market, which I'm sure is convenient for the homeowners.

 

21.

The old DP&L plant around the corner from the market is currently undergoing an office conversion.

 

22.

The Oregon District is technically its own neighborhood but the CVB considers it part of downtown so I figured I'd at least show off the new Oregon East/Wheelhouse development. It's coming together very nicely, with retail below and residential upstairs.

 

23.

Also somewhat new is Crafted and Cured, a charcuterie and beer shop. They recently opened a raw bar in their building as well.

 

24.

There's rumblings about the Paru Tower (the one with the cornice) getting renovated soon, but it's currently still empty.

 

25.

Even Sinclair College is getting in on the construction craze, with this thoroughly disappointing health science building.

 

26.

Nothing new here (well the condos in the background are new-ish), I just wanted to point out the plaque of how high the water got during the 1913 flood!

 

27.

Both of these townhome complexes are new within the past few years.

 

28.

Cooper Park, downtown's main park, finally has the fence down (although the grass hasn't all grown back yet). It was closed off during construction of the new main library, in the background.

 

29.

The library is supposed to wrap up at the end of the summer. It's a huge improvement over the old one from the 1960s, but not as cool as the original Romanesque one that used to sit here.

 

30.

The Delco Lofts are slated to be done in July. They've done an incredible job renovating the old warehouse.

 

31.

Phase 1 of the Water Street district is done, which includes offices, apartments and townhomes, but Phase 2 is supposed to break ground soon and will include more offices and a hotel.

 

32.

The Oregon District's 5th Street Deli is slated to move into this block and change into a barcade soon.

 

33.

Germantown's Mudlick Tap House is uprooting itself from Germantown and relocating to this building, which was a former sketchy nightclub. You know you're doing something right when downtown is poaching exurban bars!

 

34.

Unfortunately, the Mudlick Tap House is right across from the dead zone that is the Masque club parking lot. It's such a prime location on Cooper Park that I really would hope it gets at least downsized at some point. The long building with all the windows is part of the Fire Blocks District, for reference.

 

35.

This little guy at First and Jefferson is slated to become home to a mental health company, Access Ohio.

 

36.

The only skyline-changer currently under construction is the new 7-story CareSource expansion along First. It's basically just going to be a shorter clone of their other tower at Main and Monument.

 

38. (Not pictured at the moment)

Riverscape park recently finished up building little waterfall runs for kayakers in the Great Miami River. I think people from outside the Valley are surprised at how many recreation options there are here, but I always see people paddling in the river and Dayton has a remarkably strong biking culture, with some of the best trail networks in the state except for maybe the Towpath.

 

39.

We'll wrap up with a photo of the biggest completed project in recent memory - I-75 is finally done!

 

I think that just about covers all the exciting stuff happening in downtown Dayton... that doesn't mean that the inner ring neighborhoods are being left behind though... not by a long shot! But that may be a topic for a future post. Hopefully this helped give you a little bit of insight into some of the developments happening here in the Gem City!

 

 

 

Well done!  Thanks for these, keep them coming!

Thanks a lot.  Very informative.

 

The Arcade renovation is a MUST.  Hopefully, as part or the renovation somebody will be able to convince the "Shop N Save" next door to remove that ugly New York style awning (those awnings are a real pet peeve of mine).

^Shop N Save is likely gone during the renovation.

 

Great great tour, sir.

Many thanks for this great set of photos!  :clap:

Wow. That is a lot of activity for Dayton.

Not to be negative, but it seems like half of this thread is photos of projects that are proposed or have yet to begin. Downtown seems pretty devoid of life still, from my visits a year or so ago, and it certainly doesn't look like there is much pedestrian or vehicular traffic in the photos.

 

The area by the river and baseball stadium is definitely the highlight of this tour, and seems to be the biggest point of revitalization and growth in the downtown Dayton area. If the Arcade project can move forward and some of these larger apartment conversions happen, the real core of downtown should reap some real benefits. It's encouraging to see urban Dayton continuing to fight, in a region with such extreme suburbanization and corporate flight. Definitely rooting for Dayton!

^That's because all the pedestrians were at the ballpark!  :laugh: In all seriousness though, downtown definitely struggles with actually having feet on the street outside of the Oregon District, which makes downtown *look* a lot less vibrant than it is. You can wander toward Warped Wing or Century Bar and be the only person around for a half mile, but once inside it's absolutely packed with people. It's a very strange dynamic that makes areas feel a lot more dead than they actually are. I might have to draw up a map that shows everything that's already been rehabbed or is currently occupied, because so much of the stuff flies right under the radar.

DELCO lofts are looking great--what an improvement!

 

Thanks for the series!

this is a fantastic thread - thanks.

 

can't wait to see the price bldg uncovered lol.

 

but oh boy when i show my dayton native spouse this thread even with all the good news and she sees the delco lofts, or when we go by there in person, i just know she is going to flip out again re the old ncr bldgs, because it will be a reminder of what those could have been. she once worked at ncr and she is really bitter about that being torn down for nothing.

Great series, thanks!

 

The University of Dayton recently announced its plans to rehab the complex, but I haven't seen any timeline for this project yet. Supposedly it's underway though!

This is as close to a plan as I've seen, from Miller Valentine: http://www.mvg.com/DaytonArcade. There are several entities involved, although UD does seem to be the anchor tenant. Warped Wing, Boston Stoker, DVAC, and others have committed to the space (assuming things move forward). The developers are waiting to hear about the latest round of tax credits that should be announced soon. I think it's the same credits that the Arcade lost out on in the past year and the Center City Building got.

 

There's rumblings about the Paru Tower (the one with the cornice) getting renovated soon, but it's currently still empty.

The city is considering three proposals that were submitted for this site, and should be selecting one soon. One of the developers is the team doing the Wheelhouse development. I'd expect once that happens, it will take another year for financing, planning and then construction might start.

 

The city has an RFQ out for the old DDN/Schwind building site right now, with proposals due in July. I believe that a complication is that the city doesn't actually own the old DDN building, since it reverted back to the demolition contractor after the previous developers crashed and burned.

^Shop N Save is likely gone during the renovation.

Everything I've seen appears to indicate it will still be there, as I don't think the proposals are taking on that particular building. I know Stop N Save recently completed a major renovation and the owner has plans to expand as demand grows. I agree the awning should come down!