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The Trotwood Community Improvement Corp., the city’s private development arm, owns about 45 percent of the land in the Olde Town East area and the Dayton Metro Library is in the early stages of planning a new 13,000-square-foot library branch at the corner of Macgregor Drive and East Main Street.
Fred Burkhardt, executive director of the Trotwood Community Improvement Corp., said the city wants to outline what kind of implementable development could go in the area, with the library as an anchor.
“The whole premise is to establish a location or places where residents of Trotwood and residents of surrounding communities can go for an afternoon and evening,” he said.
He said the outline will not be a “pie in the sky” wish list, but a researched plan on what plans could actually be delivered with information like a market analysis, traffic study, marketing package, property appraisal, research on deeds and titles, and other information.
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Trotwood is applying for $116,683 to develop the plan, which will cost about $131,683 total. The city is among dozens of applicants asking the Dayton Development Coalition to advocate on their behalf for state and federal funding.
The coalition’s Priority Development and Advocacy Committee just released the list of applying projects that it will sort through to make a prioritized list of what to ask.
The project is early in the process, but Burkhardt said the city is interested in attracting a developer for some type of market rate housing on about 17 acres of land in the targeted area.
Burkhardt said they would also like to promote a “cutting edge, small entrepreneur driven” shipping container retail area, which would help establish Olde Town as a destination where people want to spend time.
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The trend of using shipping containers as artsy retail shops, apartments and office condos has taken off in recent years, including an shipping container-based apartment building near Columbus and a shipping container retail village planned in Memphis.
With the modern designs that the Dayton Metro Library has been giving its new branches, Burkhardt said it would be fitting to have other modern neighboring development.
“We want to look at what we can do to complement (the library) and capitalize on it,” he said.
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