The city says it tore down about 208 vacant and dilapidated structures last year after eliminating 188 structures in 2023.
Gondol says for 2025 the city has 247 structures under contract for removal, plus 50 fire piles. He said the city also has state money to tear down an additional 104 structures, though some of that work likely will carry over into 2026.
City leaders say this is a high level of demolition activity.
“It has been probably been a decade since we’ve seen these kinds of numbers of demolitions,” said Dayton City Commission Matt Joseph.
Of the 247 structures under contract for demolition, nearly half are located in the city’s Southern Dayton View neighborhood (118 properties; 48% of the total).
About 56 structures are in the Santa Clara neighborhood; 24 are in Westwood; 21 are in Roosevelt; and the rest are spread across a variety of neighborhoods.
“It’s going to be a lot of work coming into the communities,” said Gondol.
The city has vowed to spend nearly $22 million between 2022 and 2026 to demolish about 1,100 nuisance and blighted properties.
About one in 10 residential properties in the city need major repairs and rehab work and may be candidates for demolition without intervention, said a citywide housing condition survey.
Dayton Mayor Jeffrey Mims Jr. said the city is seeing more investment and making more investment and improvements than during any time in decades.
A significant amount of demolition work is being funded by the Dayton Recovery Plan, which is the city’s spending plan for the $138 million in federal COVID relief aid it was awarded.
The city is using COVID funds for a wide variety of housing, infrastructure, public safety and community projects.
Mayor Mims said his “heart smiles” when he sees blight removed in local neighborhoods. He said demolishing eyesores beautifies neighborhoods and improves safety and quality of life for residents.
“This raises the level of hope that people have in our community,” he said. “Clearly the city is headed in the right direction.”
Residents have consistently said that they want to see the city tear down more vacant, dilapidated structures. A 2023 citywide survey found that about a third of residents were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the condition of housing in their neighborhoods.
City officials said at the end of December there were still about 87 fire piles spread across the city. Fire piles are the mounds of debris left over after emergency demolitions following house and structure fires.
The city had about 112 fire piles at the end of 2023.
Last year, the city also added about 450 properties to its structural nuisance list.
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