“It’s definitely an area that we really like and we are always looking for opportunities to do more things, and Webster Station is definitely an area we’re comfortable in,” said Jason Woodard, principal of Woodard Development.
Law Acquisitions I LLC, which Woodard incorporated, purchased the commercial building at 444 E. Second St. for $400,000 from CityWide development.
The building will be the new home of Woodard Development, which was located in the Water Street’s office building but gave its space to Commuter Advertising.
Woodard plans to occupy about 1,000 square feet of the 25,000-square-foot commercial building. Woodard said he plans to renovate the remainder of the building into nontraditional office and creative spaces. The first lease should be signed within a couple of weeks, he said.
The building is across the street from the Brownstones at 2nd development and one block from 2nd Street Market. It is a short walk from Water Street.
The Water Street office building is filled, and its 215 apartments are open, with only two remaining vacancies, officials said.
Woodard is finalizing design plans for another stage of housing for the area at the eastern end of the development, close to Webster Street.
The plan is for three-story apartment buildings that offer stacked, single-level apartments similar to the district’s current housing product but should have different floor plans, he said.
The Water Street apartments were the first substantial rental housing development project in the city of Dayton since the early 2000s and will help activate the riverfront, officials said.
“They were the ones to say yes that downtown was ready for this kind of investment because of its assets,” said Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley. “I think that made other large-scale developers look at downtown.”
About the Author
