Downtown Dayton is pretty big. Probably bigger than it needs to be given how the economy has shrunk and population has stagnated and things moved out to suburbia.

 

The part of downtown South of Third Street has long been problematic. This was the case as early as the 1960s, when four entire blocks where demolished for a failed urban renewal project. It would be interesting to count how much shop frontage and floor space was taken out of the inventory by that intervention.

 

There've been on-and-off removals and demolitions beside the aborted Mid Town Mart project, but perhaps the big way space has been removed from the inventory was be simple vacancy. Vacancy that in some cases leaves entire buildings shuttered. The best known example is the Arcade. But there are other ways space is removed from the market.

 

Lets look at this collection of prewar skyscrapers. Downtown south of Third has six prewar skyscrapers. One, the American Building (originally the Conover Building) is one of the oldest in the city.

 

 

 

The graphs track building occupants, or establishments, as listed in the city directories, at five year intervals starting in 1965. 1965 might be a bit late for a starting point as suburban office development started in 1960 (including Dayton's first office park just south of Hills and Dales). To some degree this suburban development was a response to the poor condition of downtown office space . A city planning report indicates there was deferred investment in downtown space, so customers were looking for more modern product.

 

 

 

The American building eventually became mostly vacant before finally being taken over by RTA.  This was a sliver building before an addition turned into more of a square tower.

 

 

25 South Main was also called the Lindsey Building. This sliver building received a new elevator system in 1965, and maintained what looks like stable occupancy through 1970. During the early 1970s occupancy drastically dropped and the building was shut down at the end of 1965 (except for the ground floor retail, which continued to the mid 1980s).

 

 

 

 

 

The original name of Center City Offices was the United Brethren Building (renamed the Knott Building by the 1960s), and it was the HQ of that denomination (offices in the tower part). The UBs merged with the Methodists and left Dayton, and their building. The Knott Building was renamed Center City Offices in the 1970s. Occupancy declined after the 1970s

 

 

 

The Reibold Building was similar to Center City Offices as the big tenant left in the 1960s. This would be the Elder-Johnson department store, anchoring the southern stretch of Main Street. Elder-Johnson was taken over by Beerman, and this location was closed, leaving a big six-floor hole in the building. This leasing hole started to be plugged in the 1970s by county offices, and sometime in 1980 the entire building was converted into county offices.

 

Incidentally Center City Offices, kittycorner across Main, was also a government office building, of sorts, but never officially so and always had a mix of private sector things, too. Conversion to government use was one way to take space off the downtown real estate market (most recently via the Reynolds & Reynolds/School Board sale).

 

 

 

This pix from the Lutzenberger Collection must be older as I think this building was added to? Fidelity was a very densely occupied building, seeing a stairstep drop in occupancy through the 1970s and 1980s before sort of stabilizing in the 1990s and 2000s.

 

 

 

The Commercial Building appears to be somewhat weak even in the 1960s, but it shared the fate of the Arcade, being closed when the Arcade went under renovation and never reopened.

 

Economic Death and Zombie Skyscrapers.

 

One can see that occupancy pretty much collapsed in the 1970s, with a slower downslope in the 1980s, before somewhat stabilizing in the 1990s and 2000s (it would be interesting to do a 2008 or 2009 look to see if the downward trend is continuing, be it ever so slight).

 

 

 

 

After a certain point these buildings lose their economic viability and are closed, as with 25 S Main and the Commercial Building. In two cases, the Riebold and American buildings the structures become zombie skyscrapers in that they are not really economically alive, in that they are not in the real estate market housing for-profit enterprise. But they are populated to some degree by government offices, courts, non-profits, etc. The big example here is the Reibold Building, but also the American Building and, for awhile, Center City Offices.

 

Next, adding the two postwar skyscrapers to the mix, and a look at type of occupants, to see who was and is leasing high rise space south of Third.

 

@@@@@@@@@

 

Downtown south of Third saw no new high rise construction until the late 1960s, when the Grant-Deneau Tower was built, followed in the late 1980s/early 1990s by 1 Arcade Centre. Both of these buildings had associated parking garage, and 1 Arcade Centre had a low-rise annex designed as a shopping arcade (which was, of course, never fully leased).

 

 

 

The Grant-Deneau Tower was built by an architect-developer, sort of like a local John Portman. It opened sometime between 1967 and 1970. The first snapshot here, from 1970, shows the bottom floors vacant, so perhaps it was still leasing (or had just lost a large tenant). From 1975 through 1990 this was a fairly well-occupied building. After 1990 occupancy drops and multiple floors apparently go unleased.

 

The name of the building changes, to0. By 1975 this is the Miami Valley Tower and in the 2000s the name changes again to 40 West Fourth. Perhaps as a reflection of changing economic fortunes of the building.

 

 

This tower was to be one of two twin towers, separated by an low rise annex. Only one tower was built, and it was mostly leased by law offices, and fairly large ones, taking up entire floors.

The most recent city directories don't list vacant suites, but the room numbers indicate there are multiple empty floors in this building, too, even if it is the newest speculative office skyscraper downtown. The building first appears in the 1995 snapshot, indicating it opened between 1990 and 1995.

 

 

Taking a look at cumulative occupancy, adding buildings together by year, for 1965-2005, one gets the full picture of skyscraper occupancy downtown south of Third. in the late postwar era.

 

 

 

Based on the directory listings (which become somewhat questionable starting in 2000) occupancy has entered an era of slow decline after dramatic drops in the 1970s and 1980s (though for awhile it looked like there might have been some stabilization in the 200-150 occupant range after 1980).

 

Pretty interesting look, but I wonder why you chose to use occupants. If 1 occupant takes up the entire building, then I wouldn't call that a decline.

Those are some gorgeous old skyscrapers.

Sad reality; fantastic buildings. Dayton has a great collection of prewar skyscrapers.

Wow...this is an impressive collection of data.  Not a very good trend, but great information to have.

Thanks for the info.

This was a sliver building before an addition turned into more of a square tower.

 

Do you have an image of the American building before the addition? Old pictures of the Knott building when it was just a sliver always blow me away.

^

Im thinking there is one somewhere, pre addition.

Jeffrey,

Do you have the information about the occupancy rates? Obviously Dayton has declined, so I'm sure your information points to the truth, number of occupants just isn't an appropriate statistic to prove what you're trying to prove. Proctor and Gamble fills 2 whole buildings in Cincinnati, is it a problem that there is only 1 tenant?

 

That said I really appreciate the effort to sort through the information and really liked the visuals.

I posted a second thread where I talk about this.  I think its called "Do the Collapse..."

Great analysis, very interesting stuff.