This new marketplace will have small retail spaces that are expected to offer affordable, short-term leases, possibly between six to 12 months.
“It’s going to be really our only retail hub in the downtown core,” said Williams, who works for the main commercial developer of the Dayton Arcade. “It’s our opportunity to really bring back the craft retail, which is sort of emerging now.”
The Dayton Arcade project is expected to be a roughly $160 million investment when all is said and done, Williams said.
The Arcade consists of nine interconnected buildings, seven of which have have been rehabbed into new housing, offices, co-working spaces, a theater, an event space, classrooms, an innovation hub and other uses.
The Arcade in the last several months welcomed a new upscale cocktail and coffee bar and restaurant called Gather By Ghostlight and a new Italian restaurant called Est! Est!! Est!!!.
The ground floor of a building along Ludlow Street is being turned into a new 6888 Kitchen incubator. Table 33 is expected to move into the Arcade sometime next year.
Work continues on the two northernmost Arcade buildings, which are being turned into a 94-room Hilton Garden Inn Hotel and a retail marketplace. They are expected to open in late 2024. The north Arcade project is about $41 million.
Williams said the marketplace probably will have 10 to 12 small tenants. The typical space is about 300 square feet.
Williams also said roughly several thousand square feet of ground floor retail and restaurant space remains available in the entire complex.
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Vacant spaces are along Main Street and include the first floor of the Lindsey building and the old Subway fast-food storefront.
Williams said there’s probably room for about three tenants in the remaining first-floor spaces.
The Arcade developers say retail and dining and drinking establishments are vital to the complex’s success and the larger vision for this part of downtown.
“Cross Street Partners is finalizing plans for the remaining restaurant and retail space in the South Arcade, as well as the marketplace retail environment in the North Arcade,” said Megan Dunn Peters, Arcade community manager.
The developers say they’ve found creative ways to fill up the ground-floor spaces.
The Gather space, which also has a connected art gallery, cost roughly $1 million to build out. But the project was helped financially by the First Floor Fund, which is administered by CityWide.
Shane Anderson, the owner of Ghostlight Coffee, said Gather’s rent payments are based on a percentage of its gross receipts for the first three years of his lease.
The rent payments for the remaining seven years of the lease will be determined based on the business’ sales.
“That was definitely key to making a decision‚” Anderson said. “Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have done it because it would have been even more risky, not that isn’t risky already.”
Williams said Est! Est!! Est!!! pays a base rent, plus a percentage of gross revenue. He said Table 33 will have a similar kind of agreement, but the details of lease arrangements depend on a number of factors.
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