Dayton’s first loo, which is located at the northwest corner of Third and Ludlow streets, will be operational tonight, Friday, Nov. 10, 2023.
A second restroom is expected to be installed early next week on East Fifth Street near the Oregon District parking garage. The location is just west of Drake’s Downtown Gym.
The Portland Loo is a stainless-steel kiosk restroom that is designed to prevent common problems seen in other public restrooms, like drug use, graffiti and prostitution, said Tom Ritchie Jr., Dayton’s deputy director of public works.
Portland Loos are “designed to be uncomfortable” and provide only a limited sense of privacy to prevent nuisance activities from happening inside, said Madden Fabrication, which makes the units. The city of Portland, Oregon, designed and patented the restroom units.
The bathrooms provide some privacy, but the tops and bottoms of the units have open gratings that allow for some visibility, and noise from inside also carries outside.
Portland Loos also have blue lights to make it hard for drug users to locate their veins to inject narcotics.
Some types of restrooms provide way more privacy, which makes it easier to conceal criminal and nuisance activities, officials said.
Dayton police Major Jason Hall earlier this year said there are not many public restroom facilities downtown.
Free public restrooms also are available at the Dayton Metro Library, the Levitt Pavilion Dayton, the RTA bus hub, RiverScape MetroPark and the 2nd Street Market, but they are not open at all hours.
Major Hall said public defecation is an issue to the public and the Downtown Dayton Ambassadors who are in charge of cleaning up public spaces in the center city.
Hilary Browning, Dayton’s budget and grants supervisor, said Dayton’s Portland Loos will have baby changing stations, hand sanitizer, trash bins and handwashing stations on the exterior.
Dayton approved spending about $334,000 of its federal Community Development Block Grant money to acquire two Portland Loos.
The block grants are part of special COVID relief funding.
The Oregon District garage and City Hall loos will operate until around midnight ever day, and they reopen early each morning, Browning said.
Portland Loos are easy to clean and have a skylight and interior light so they are well lit and can be used at night, she said.
She said the Portland Loo is a proven model and best practice when it comes to public restroom facilities, and they are used by more than 200 communities in the United States, Canada and New Zeeland.
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