UD has invested more than $20 million to renovate the 455,000-square-foot facility, including constructing an outdoor algae lab and converting office space into laboratories, said Beth Keyes, the university’s vice president for facilities management.
Nearly 300 people now work at the River Campus building, including 207 university employees. UDRI plans to move another 90 employees to that location by the end of 2015.
But the building could have become a blighted property on a major entryway into downtown Dayton.
“You never want a company like an NCR to leave. When they do, it’s what are you going to make of it,” said Jeff Hoagland, Dayton Development Coalition president and chief executive.
“UD stepped up. Their mission is all about servant leadership. They made a bold decision to purchase that, and the Dayton region and the city of Dayton is benefiting from that. We are going to see a lot of spinoff from that, as well,” Hoagland said.
The facility’s future was far from certain in June 2009, when NCR announced it was moving its headquarters and most of 1,300 Dayton jobs to the Atlanta area by the end of 2010.
NCR’s exit cost the city of Dayton an estimated $2.6 million in income taxes, and cost local governments and school districts $960,000 in property taxes.
In 2009, the Montgomery County Auditor’s Office valued the NCR property at $31.1 million.
“Even though NCR sold it at a very good price, it was not an easy decision to make,” given the local economy at the time, said John Leland, UD interim vice president for research and executive director of UDRI.
In 2005, UD purchased about 50 acres of land and buildings, between Patterson Boulevard and Brown Street, from NCR for $25 million. The university later purchased an additional five acres from NCR, before acquiring the company’s former headquarters in December 2009.
UDRI was in “desperate need of space” at that time and was looking to construct a new building or lease off-campus facilities in order to grow, Leland said. The NCR headquarters acquisition addressed the institute’s growth needs and allowed it to consolidate researchers from multiple sites at one location.
“It’s those personal interactions that still dominate the collective creation of ideas, and the relationships that get built around an idea that allow a couple of researchers in different fields to go off and do something outstanding. This building is going to ultimately enable that,” Leland said.
Five of UDRI’s seven divisions are now located at the River Campus, with members of a sixth expected to move there next year. Some labs will remain at UDRI’s Shroyer Park Center at 131 Firwood Drive because of the nature of their research, officials said.
UDRI has 445 full-time employees, and had revenue of $87.5 million for fiscal year 2014.
UD President Daniel J. Curran said the move allowed UDRI to re-brand itself and stand alone as a “world-class research institute.”
The acquisition also created space on UD’s historic campus for both the School of Engineering and the School of Education & Health Sciences. In addition, it eliminated the need to construct an alumni center, research labs and a parking tower that were planned for the former NCR property between Brown Street and South Main Street. The River Campus building has a 1,600-space parking lot.
“The building itself is a great addition, but what it allowed us to do on campus utilizing space vacated by entities that were in these areas has had a tremendous impact, too,” Curran said.
Midmark moved its headquarters to the River Campus building from its Versailles campus in July 2013. The medical, dental, veterinary health care equipment manufacturer has 65 employees working in about 23,000 square feet of space on the fourth floor of the building.
“One of the reasons that we needed to move was we were struggling to attract talent to our small town about an hour north of here,” said Anne Eiting Klamar, Midmark’s president and chief executive.
Being on UD’s campus has given the company access to more talent and markets, and allowed it to increase its internship and co-operative education programs. Midmark also has gained close access to UDRI.
“Our teammates and some of our engineers have been doing a few projects with UDRI, tapping into their expertise, particularly around sensors,” Klamar said.
UD’s acquisition of NCR’s former headquarters also included Old River Park, a 48-acre park that was completed in 1939 and was once only open to NCR employees, retirees and their families.
Keyes said the university is slowly phasing in a master plan for the park that was developed by SWA, a Houston, Texas-based landscape architecture firm. The plan calls for an amphitheater, student activity spaces, and bicycle and pedestrian paths.
A portion of the park has been opened for use by several local charity events, but completing the park is “fundraising dependent,” Keyes said.
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