Dayton development: Half a billion in recent investment is changing neighborhoods

These investments are on top of the major work the city is doing to eliminate blight, fix up properties and improve conditions in local neighborhoods, city leaders said.

The city has gone through lean times where investment was scarce, but that’s not the case today, said Dayton City Commissioner Matt Joseph.

Dayton City Manager Shelley Dickstein said the city has benefited from more than $550 million in recent investment.

She said that tally includes about $349 million in economic development and business expansion projects that create new jobs.

She said roughly $201 million has been spent on community investments such as new and improved housing, amenities and roadway and other infrastructure.

Dickstein says the city has contributed millions of dollars to help leverage private investment, but the spending ratio of public to private dollars is about 31 to 1.

“That’s pretty impressive,” she said.

West Dayton

Recent investment in West Dayton has totaled about $62 million, and new projects in this geography include the recently opened QuikTrip store and expansion projects by Bonbright Distributors, Malt Products and DuPont, said Veronica Morris, Dayton’s economic development supervisor.

In the Wright Dunbar historic business district, the group that developed the popular food hall, W. Social Tap & Table, is working on a multimillion-dollar project called the Cornerstone.

This renovation of multiple vacant buildings will add new businesses including a burger restaurant, a speakeasy, a deli, a cigar shop and lounge and a tea and wine bar.

Morris said community development projects in West Dayton include the $18 million Homefull Healthy Living Campus that is under construction and the $16 million Germantown Crossing apartment building that will help begin to replace public housing units in the DeSoto Bass complex.

The Homefull campus, on the 800 block of South Gettysburg Avenue, will have a grocery store, food hub and pharmacy and medical services.

Northwest Dayton

Grand Place and Hoover Place senior apartments, which are part of more than $105 million in new investment in the northwestern part of the city, have been renovated, according to city staff.

Grand Place, at Salem and Grand avenues, has about 64 apartments that have been updated and modernized. Hoover Place, located along Hoover Avenue near the Ohio 49 connector, has about 280 senior apartments that have been remodeled.

A group called Magnus Capital Partners is working on a project called the HōM Flats at Forest Avenue that would put about 260 new apartments on and around the former site of Julienne High School.

This workforce housing would be a big deal for Dayton’s Five Oaks neighborhood, said Tony Kroeger, Dayton’s planning division manager.

Downtown Dayton

The Delco, located just south of Day Air Ball Park, is a massive building that has been revitalized at a cost of nearly $100 million.

Crawford Hoying and Woodard Development, the developers of the Water Street District, have renovated the former Mendelsons Liquidation Outlet building into a mixed-use development.

This includes about 160 apartments, 80,000 square feet of office space and 480 parking spaces. The revitalization of the Mendelsons building has been called “the mother of all projects” downtown. The facility is larger than the Dayton Arcade’s eight connected buildings combined.

Other downtown investments include Diné Development Corp.’s purchase and planned renovation of the former Entrepreneurs Center facility on the 700 block of Monument Avenue.

The company, owned by the Navajo Nation, plans to employ about 250 people over the next several years at this facility, which will be used for research and development.

Kaney Aerospace, an engineering company, recently opened a technical field office at 205 E. First St. downtown. The company plans to add more than two dozen new jobs over the next several years.

East Dayton

East End Community Services, on the 600 block of Xenia Avenue in the Twin Towers neighborhood, is spending about $5.9 million to renovate and expand its facility.

Nearby, Miami Valley Child Development Centers broke ground last fall on a roughly $11 million new facility at 401 Nassau St., also in the Twin Towers neighborhood.

The new Lincoln Hill Early Learning Center, which is being constructed on the site of the former Lincoln Elementary School, will have 14 classrooms, with the capacity to serve up to 250 students.

Northeast Dayton

Dayton Children’s Hospital in Old North Dayton is building a large, new behavioral health building on its campus that is expected to open in summer 2025. The facility is expected to cost more than $100 million.

Dayton Children’s also is spending around $13 million to create “kinship care housing” near its campus on Valley Street.

The cluster of cottage-like homes will feel like a village and will provide housing to caregivers who are raising children who are not their biological offspring.

Civitas, a Cincinnati company, plans to construct 16 attached single-family homes at the northeast corner of Keowee and Valley streets.

The project, called “The Point,” will help revitalize an area that officials hope will become an attractive gateway into the Old North Dayton neighborhood.

Public funding

The city of Dayton has provided funding and incentives to some of the economic development, business expansion and housing projects that are taking place in the city.

Dayton also is funding a variety of major infrastructure improvements across the city, including along some busy and important corridors.

Dayton is giving nearly $2 million to a project that will create seven new homes in the Wolf Creek neighborhood in West Dayton. The city is giving $1.5 million to The Point in Old North Dayton.

The city is looking at giving $2 million to the HōM Flats housing project in northwest Dayton.

Some city funding comes from the Dayton Recovery Plan, which is the city’s spending plan for its $138 million in federal COVID relief funds.

But Morris, the city’s economic development supervisor, said it’s important to note that while Dayton has shelled out about $16.8 million in public investment, that has leveraged more than $526 million in private investment.

City officials say they are using federal COVID aid money as “seeding” for transformational development.