Historic downtown Biltmore building part of sale by outside company

The Biltmore Hotel is known today as Biltmore Towers, a senior living apartment building. LISA POWELL / STAFF

The Biltmore Hotel is known today as Biltmore Towers, a senior living apartment building. LISA POWELL / STAFF

Related Companies, an owner of affordable housing in the United States, recently announced it is acquiring 7,837 housing units from Apartment Investment and Management Co., including the Biltmore Towers property in Dayton.

Related Affordable, a housing division of Related Cos., has entered into a binding agreement to purchase Aimco’s Asset Management portfolio and four affordable real estate communities for $590 million.

MOREIt's Election Day and the polls are open 

The portfolio sale included the Biltmore site at 210 N. Main St. in downtown Dayton,

In all, the units involved in the transaction were located across 51 properties in 16 states, Related said in a statement.

“The development and preservation of affordable housing has been a cornerstone of Related’s business for more than 40 years,” Matthew Finkle, president of Related Affordable, a division of Related Cos., said in a statement announcing the acquisition. “We have preserved tens of thousands of affordable housing units across the country and have never converted a single unit to market rate — a legacy we intend to extend to all of the 7,837 apartments in this portfolio.”

DOWNTOWN HISTORY:Historic downtown building is sold 

“This transaction simplifies the Aimco business and completes the planned exit from the affordable housing business that we announced in 2011,” Aimco Chairman/CEO Terry Considine said in the same statement.

The Biltmore opened as a 500-room hotel in 1929. Its brick and terra cotta exterior was designed in the “second Renaissance Revival style,” according to research by the city of Dayton.

Inside the hotel, then the largest in the city, travertine marble columns and sculptured plaster coffered ceilings added to an air of elegance

Referred to as "an epoch in the history of Dayton," a dinner dance for 1,000 people was held Saturday, Nov. 16, 1929 to mark the opening, this newspaper recalled in a November 2016 story.

Today, the building offers apartments for senior citizens.

About the Author